More Like Her
by waitingfornow
Summary: When Edward Cullen left Bella Swan, he kept running. Eventually meeting back up with his family, he decided to at least attempt to get on with his life. But is that something so easily accomplished when the past keeps coming back to slap him in the face?
1. Chapter 1

_**Author's Note:**__ And here is the new story! __More Like Her__. The story is just starting out and I like to just write and see where the characters and story takes me. And now, so that I don't give anything away, I stop babbling so you guys can get into the new story!_

_Stephenie Meyer's the genius, I just got inspired. Again. Please review! It keeps me writing._

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**CHAPTER ONE:**

It had been three years. Three agonizingly long years since the biggest mistake of my life. Or rather, my existance. The term life no longer applied to me and hadn't for a very long time.

There were things about me, as well as my family, that people weren't allowed to know about. Secrets so deep and horrifying that keeping to ourselves was the most important part of our existance. There were so many rules in my hidden existance, but they all seemed to fall under one, very important heading. _The secret must be kept._ And for the most part, the secret had been kept.

We always moved before people could notice how different we were from them. It was imperitive that no one lace the connections together. Our absence from sunny days, our unchanging appearances, eyes that changed color, and how inhumanly perfect our features were. To the public, we were simply outcasts. A large family that was connected by a terrifying secret, which had been strengthened by bonds of love. There was the traditional bond of love, one that I hadn't known until eight years before, but my family knew well. Until two years after we moved to the rainy town of Forks, Washington; I'd never known the emotions that held the couples in my family together. I couldn't have even fathomed how it felt for my mother and father, in all ways but biological, to spend their eternity together. But when a seventeen-year-old human girl had walked into my life, I caught my first real glimpse into the world that my siblings had constructed around themselves. True love, in its purest form. But it was only a glimpse, I was not meant to bask and thrive in it as my family had. Denying myself happiness and pleasure had become like second nature, and eight very long years before, I had denied myself once again.

It hurt to leave her, to leave the frail human girl that was a danger magnet in every single way. But by having me in her life, by choosing to love me and being enveloped in the world she was supposed to know nothing about, the dangers had mounted against her. Several times, her life had been threatened until I finally made the agonizing decision to take myself out of her world. She didn't belong in the same life as me. Her humanity and everything that lit her up as the most glorious creature I'd ever seen didn't give her enough strength to remain in my world. I was too dangerous for her, my love too toxic for someone so innocent and perfect.

But that hadn't made my choice any easier. It had hurt to sever all ties with Bella Swan as my family moved out of Forks and relocated to another dreary town that would hide us better. The wounds hadn't even begun to heal from the disasterous conversation that had been my last with her. Making her believe that I no longer loved her had been easier than I could've ever expected. I could still remember seeing the spark leave her large, chocolate eyes as her intriguing mind made the connections my lips could not formulate verbally. I had lied to protect her, to save her from her death, and she had believed me so absolutely.

I had been keeping tabs on the young girl that had awoken a very dormant part of my being until recently. At first, it had been difficult, to see the level of pain that I had unknowingly inflicted. But I couldn't let myself waver in my decision. Her safety and well-being were much more important to me than my own happiness and I was determined to never force her to make the choice no one in my family, myself included, had been granted. I would not, _could not_ let her turn her back on humanity just so that I could be selfish enough to have her with me as my parents and siblings had their soulmates. It didn't seem fair, not to someone like Bella. She could do better than me, she could find someone that loved her as healthily as I'd never been able to. And just three years before, the last time I visited Forks to see her progress; it seemed she had done just that.

While it had been my wish, my hopes for her to gain a normal and happy life, it still hurt to see the smile light up her face; knowing that I had not been the one to transfix her lips in such a gesture. The culprit, a young man that caused jealousy to flash-burn through me like a hot fire; was Jacob Black. I knew a little of him, but only from the conversations I'd had with Bella. He was the son of her father's best friend, from the neighboring Indian reservation of La Push. Watching them together, I wasn't sure if I could have hand-picked a better match for her than him. He was abnormally tall and muscular, easily looking like he could serve as the kind of protector I wanted for Bella. The kind of protector that I could not be. All because he was human. His heart beat strongly in his chest, blood flowing freely through his veins with a future stretched out endlessly in front of him. A future bright with all the possibilities granted to someone like him. Possibilities that had been placed in Bella's future when she became Mrs. Jacob Black.

I had forced myself to be there for their nuptials; lying to myself that I needed the confirmation that she was safe, loved, and would be well taken care of. Even if she would never know that I had been there. And as the year that followed stretched out, I realized that I had been right. Seeing Isabella Marie Swan happy and radiant on her wedding day had given my unbeating heart a sense of relief. If I could not be with her, I was grateful for the knowledge that she had someone to walk through this life with. She had moved on with her life, gotten over me and found someone more healthy to love.

Of course there were supernatural myths that surrounded the boy she had chosen to marry. Some of those myths, actually more like histories, tied with my own. But as I stood there, watching her glide through freshly-cut grass on the arm of her father, I could not force myself to act on those histories. To use them as my defence for crashing into her life to reclaim her as my own. I'd tossed that claim away, not lightly, but it had been done nonetheless. It wasn't fair to Bella for me to disrupt her life for the second time, only to agonize endlessly about my change of heart.

All of that felt like a lifetime ago, if it could even be discribed as that. Now things were back to the simple lifestyle my family and I had adopted before moving to Forks. Before that tiny girl with expressive brown eyes and chestnut hair made me feel alive for the very first time in over a hundred years. We were settled in a small town right outside Hanover, New Hampshire. It had originally been my idea to move as far away from Bella and her new life as possible, in hopes of easing the urge to disrupt everything she had now. But my family readily moved with me, and my 'oldest' siblings were even enrolled in the prestigious Dartmouth College.

The rest of us, myself; Alice and her other half Jasper, were again pretending to be high school students, the adopted children of Dr. Carlisle and Mrs. Esme Cullen. Rosalie and her mate, Emmett were basking in the rare treat to enter into the scholastic world as college freshmen while the rest of my siblings and I adopted the roles of high school juniors. It was a bit of a stretch, once someone saw us all together at one time. But that had been the reason for living just outside of town. We were less conspicous this way, able to blend in more easily and stretch out time out a little further. My gift, a true blessing among my kind, did preview me to the speculation that surrounded us. But with a brilliant doctor like Carlisle Cullen settling into his new life, no one raised those thoughts into actual words. It was all in their thoughts whenever one or a few of us would meander around town. Always on a gloomy, overcast day with rain just around the corner. That was how we preferred it, it was detrimental to staying as invisible as possible in this new town.

A quiet sigh passed through my lips as I walked through the brightly lit hallway of Carlisle's new place of residence. My father was never happier than when he was in the ER, saving lives that would otherwise be lost in the hands of other doctors. Then again, Carlisle was no ordinary doctor, unlimited with the same gifts and senses that he had bestowed on his family. My stride held as I crossed to the nurse's station, smiling when a woman with firey red hair looked up from the book that lay open in front of her. Just one glance at the paperback told me it was a favorite of hers, the binding so destroyed that it needed no assistance in laying flat on the page she had just been reading.

"Hello Edward, here to visit your father?"

"Yes." I managed in a polite tone, the invisible lines around my mouth feeling strained as I stared into her flat brown eyes. Bella's expressive eyes had tainted the eye color for me, never letting me see another pair of eyes quite the same way again. I briefly cursed the thought and banished it to the back of my mind as I rested my forearms on the low counter and pretended to peer over to see what she was reading. A trashy romance novel, of course. The woman's thoughts gave her away as soon as I was within hearing range. She had been daydreaming of acting out the last scene she'd read when I approached. I forced the grimace to keep from passing my features when her thoughts gave her away, placing me in the role of her romancer as she gazed up at me. "Could you tell me where he is? My mother asked me to stop by after school so I could ask him something."

"Of course." She followed her words with a flurry of movement, her thoughts breaking from the daydreaming I'd caught her in into disarray as she tried to remember where Carlisle was located. I had long ago perfected my patient smile as I watched her consult a nearby chart before looking back up at me again. "He's with a new patient. Poor dear, young girl left right outside the entrance. I believe he's up in the ICU, trying to stabilize her. I could page him if you want."

"That's no problem." My smile felt foreign on my face as I shook my head and raised back up to my full height. "I'll just go wait in his office for him. Thank you."

Her smile wavered a little as I turned my back and swiftly disappeared out of sight. It was probably a little too fast to pass for a human's pace, but I was desperate to get away before her thoughts once again set my empty stomach churning. I did not want to stand by and watch as I starred in her unoriginal daydreams. Bypassing Carlisle's office, I made my way up to the ICU and repeated the same performance with the nurse up there. Thankfully, I encountered a male this time, George; who I had caught worrying about his pregnant wife. She had been brought in not long ago with complications and was now confined to bedrest. But in my haste to see Carlisle, I couldn't bring myself to ask how things were at home. He simply let me fold myself into a chair so I could wait for my father to emerge from the young girl's room.

Eternity had also perfected my waiting skills but my agitation was so strong that I began to bounce my knee as I forced myself to look around. The gestures were simply for show, I didn't need to move. There was no relief to my actions anymore, the only repreive I felt came from running at my full strength through an endless maze of trees. Something I had, thankfully, not lost when the course of my existance changed course.

Carlisle emerged, looking worried and thoroughly upset as he exited a dark room and slid the glass divider closed. I could only guess the condition of the patient he had just left. I was on my feet at once, an acceptable pace this time, and crossed the space to stop at my father's side.

"Edward." He sighed when he finally looked up to see me standing in front of him. His smile was weary as he set the clipboard he'd been holding down and rubbed his forehead. "What a happy surprise, what brings you up here?"

"Esme asked me to come by and see what you would like for dinner." I lied, only to keep up the charade that we were an actual, normal family. It was probably weird to bystanders that I addressed my mother by her first name, but that was why we claimed to be adopted children. Sometimes adopted children felt more comfortable addressing their parents by their given names. And the story in this town was that I had been orphaned at ten, later adopted by Carlisle and Esme at thirteen. It was all ludicrious and made me laugh darkly to myself as I recounted my real history. I had been seventeen when Carlisle adopted me and started our family. I had been the first, a boy he could not leave to die in a hospital in Chicago, Illinois as the Spanish Influenza raged through the town like a wildfire. My own parents had died, first my father, then my mother; just hours before my heart beat for the final time as I passed from the human world into the supernatural darkness of vampirism.

"Let's go to my office so we can call her and bounce ideas back and forth." Always one for appearances, Carlisle continued to smile tiredly at me and escorted me to the fourth floor, where his office was located. Once inside with the door closed, all masks were dropped as my father fell into the high-backed, leather chair behind a wide oak desk piled with papers and dozens of patient folders.

"How's the girl?" I asked, even though I didn't need to. He was still worrying about her, silently of course, trying to piece together her mysterious appearance in the hospital.

"Not well, I'm afraid." He sighed and seemed to sink even deeper into his chair as I lounged in the wide chair across from him. "We haven't been able to locate any family and she hasn't become lucid enough for us to obtain her name. At this point, she is simply Jane Doe." Carlisle sighed again and shook his head as he stared at a spot just over my left shoulder. "Such a waste too, if it weren't for the bruising and abrasions, I'm sure she would be a very pretty girl. Someone out there _must_ be missing her."

"You shouldn't worry yourself about her." I replied casually, hating how calloused I'd become since reuniting with my family. Walking away from Bella had left deeper scars than I'd originally thought. "I'm sure you'll find someone to take care of her."

"I hope so." His smile grew a little more genuine that time as he finally looked at me. "We don't know how old she is, but guessing from her dental work, she is around the age Rosalie was." Almost as soon as he said those words, a deep frown settled onto his features. "And she has apparently suffered the same fate as your sister."

Though I tried, I couldn't completely fight back the cringe that shook through me. I hated to remember the actions that had brought Rosalie Hale into our family. She had been welcomed in after Esme, who had joined us just a couple of years after my rebirth. "Well if that's true, maybe she's better off with no one to claim her."

"I'm half-tempted to have her released into my care." Carlisle joked with a wan smile, but I could see he was seriously contemplating it. Something that intrigued me. He hadn't thought about bringing anyone into our lives so officially since Bella. Though his thoughts betrayed no move toward immortality, I knew it wouldn't be too far off if this girl was brought to live with us.

"Esme would burn you to ashes if you tried." I teased and smiled sardonically at him. There was no real threat behind my words. Esme would welcome the girl in with open arms and never want her to leave. The maternal instincts that had driven Esme to end her life hadn't dulled when she crossed that same invisible line as me. She had just learned to make due with my brothers, sisters, and me.

"Maybe." Carlisle mused with one of his patient smiles then suddenly leaned foward onto his desk. "Now, onto the real reason why you're here. You never come to the hospital unless you have something important to talk to me about."

"I was just in the neighborhood." I admitted with a casual shrug of my shoulders. It was the truth, I just didn't feel the need to explain _why_ I was in the neighborhood. My loss, if it could even be called that, had put a strain on my family. They all had experienced the sudden departure from Bella as I had, though not quite to the level I had. But after taking some time to myself, to let myself wallow and be miserable, I came back with the silent vow to not burden them with my sorrow. This was my cross, one of many actually, to bare and I wasn't going to inflict anymore damage on the perfectly matched couples of my family.


	2. Chapter 2

_Stephenie Meyer's the genius, I'm just having fun_

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**CHAPTER TWO:**

It had been two days since my impromptu visit to the hospital, and in that time, I found myself thinking about the girl that plagued Carlisle's thoughts. He came home every morning with her on his mind. She had been moved out of the ICU late last night and into a private room that Carlisle was secretly funding. It would look bad to see a patient being cared for financially by a doctor, but after a long discussion with Esme, that decision had been agreed on by both of them. Esme couldn't stand to watch someone suffer, not if there was something her husband could do about it. But still, thinking about her, marking her progress through my creator's thoughts was a little unsettling.

I once again found myself within the walls of the hospital, strangely needing to see this girl for myself. I had seen her enough through Carlisle's thoughts, but there was some part of me that needed the confirmation of her existance. And I had to admit, curiosity was nagging at me. How badly off was this girl that no one was stepping forward to claim her? What had caused her condition and why was she still all alone with no name? There were too many questions surrounding this girl and for the first time in a very long time, I found myself snared by yet another riddle disguized as a human.

Sneaking into the room had taken absolutely no effort at all and before I could even blink, I was in the same room as the mysterious girl clouding my father's thoughts. As soon as I saw her, I assumed that Carlisle had been right. She had been placed in the bed, wearing a standard hospital gown with her arms at her sides. They held the blankets tightly against her, displaying the soft curves of her body. There were a few spots, mainly around her abdomen that were distended because of a mound of bandaging. The bits of her arms that weren't covered in marks held a soft tan that I knew she couldn't have gotten in New Hampshire.

I couldn't let myself think twice as I eased into the chair nearest her bed. The only chair in the room, as if someone had known this girl would not need anything other than her own bed. More questions began to fill my buzzing mind as I continued to let my eyes sweep over every single inch of this girl's face and body. Her eyes were closed with her chest rising and falling with the help of a nearby ventilator. Even with the distortion of her lips around the tube sustaining her, they were a soft shade of pink and full around the breaks of skin that had undoubtedly occured during the events that led her to needing medical care. But the thing I noticed most was the soft curve of her tiny, button nose, cheeks that had yet to lose some of their baby fat and the uneven, short tuffs of deep red hair covering her scalp. Everything about her was intriguing to me and I suddenly began to loathe myself for wanting to know more about this girl. Obviously her hair had been dyed, why did she choose such a dark red? The same color that would hue my eyes if I didn't deny my very nature. What color were her eyes, which were hidden underneath deeply bruised eyelids. It looked her face had recieved a majority of the trauma, but the exposed skin of her neck and arms didn't look to be in such great shape either. Whoever had done this, whichever human monster lurked in her world hadn't spared her a moment of mercy.

Leaning forward, I rested my arms on my thighs and interlocked my fingers. The desire to reach out and touch her was surprisingly strong and nearly impossible to ignore. Unlike my thirst, which had been ignited as soon as I walked into the small room, was managable due to the severity of this girl's injuries. There was the twinge of fresh blood in the air thanks to the plug that had been inserted into the crook of her right elbow. My guess, it was so the nursing staff wouldn't have to unnecessarily stick her when and if more tests were needed to monitor her condition. Her smell, the delicious pulse beneath her skin was beating all around me and the intensity I suddenly felt was rivaled only by the scent of one other human's blood. _Her_ blood, which had been the most intoxicating scent I'd ever smelled in my century of existance. Maybe that was yet another thing I could thank Bella's presence for. She had restored some of the humanity I'd lost over the years, she had made me realize my own strenght when it came to resisting the monster behind my eyes.

Whatever it was, I held onto it tightly as I continued to watch this unconscious, human girl. The thoughts I figured were swirling around in her mind buzzed quietly, like a space heater running in a distant room. Whether it was because of her state of consciousness or yet another weird glitch I was encountering, I wasn't sure; but I couldn't make out a single thing this girl was thinking of. She lay completely immobile under my tense gaze and I noticed the faint scars that offset discolorations in her bruises. There was a faint scar in the eyebrow perfectly arched over her right eye, another slightly larger scar marring the left underside of her jaw. These must have been surviving reminders of past brutality. Maybe this wasn't the first time she had been left broken and bleeding by someone more powerful than she. I couldn't estimate how tall she would be if she were standing, but the curves beneath the blankets gave me a fair assumtion of just how tiny she was. There was literally no muscle or weight to her, her arms sickeningly slender against her sides. At least three tiny dots flecked her right earlobe and another mark was all but hidden beneath the bruise that covered that same side of her nose. Hmm, maybe she'd had an appreciation of body jewelry. The only time I'd ever seen a prick in a person's nose came from a piece of jewelry being shoved through the skin by a professional.

Thoughts hurled themselves around my head suddenly, breaking me from my reviere. Looking up, my eyebrows furrowed slightly when I didn't recognize the tenor of this new person's thoughts. But he came into view rather quickly, his tiny body swathed in dark green scrubs with a nametag dangling over the right side of his absent chest. A male nurse.

"Oh." He started and jumped back slightly when he finally noticed me at this girl's bedside and slapped a hand over his chest in a very feminine way. His thoughts became clearer then and I had to force myself not to cringe when they assaulted me in the same voice he'd used for his outcry. _Wow, this girl's first visitor and he's drop-dead gorgeous! Of course, the good ones are always straight and taken. But wait...isn't he one of Dr. Cullen's boys? Does he know her?_

"I didn't mean to startle you." I spoke quietly in a tone I knew was soothing to surprised humans. Careful not to expose the wide, straight row of teeth behind my lips, I rose from the chair and extended one hand; it was completely obscured by the sleeve of my hoodie. He wouldn't notice my shockingly cold skin. That was a good sign, though I was sure he had already grown accustomed to my father's hands if he knew of Dr. Cullen. "I just wanted to come and check on her. My father's been terribly worried about her."

"No problem." He was still flustered and his cheeks colored brilliantly as he shook my hand. It was a brief clasp, his fingers curled against mine for about a tenth of a second before he scurried around the bed and approached the girl's other side.

"Is there any change?" I asked and forced my body to fold back into the chair I'd been occupying when this man interrupted the silence. "Have you found out anything about her?"

"No." The man, Mitchell was embossed clearly on his nametag, frowned and shook his head as he checked the girl's vitals. "No one's come forward yet and I'm afraid no one will. Shame." He sighed dramatically then and looked at the girl with such sadness that it actually sent a pang of sorrow through my stomach. "Pretty girl like this must have _someone_ missing her. I can't imagine anyone being able to overlook her."

His thoughts took off from there, more self-deprication about the unfairness he often felt when in the prescence of someone he found tempting with a girl in close proxmity. Not bothering to try and decipher it all, mainly because Mitchell's thoughts were mundane and repetitive, I looked back at the girl and let a frown crease my features as I concentrated on the dull buzz of her thoughts instead. I'd only ever encountered two people whose thoughts I couldn't hear. Two names that I refused to let myself think about in this moment. After all, that was in the past. I had forced myself from their lives and they probably hated me with every fiber of their beings as a result. Thinking of them now, especially the younger whose thoughts I hadn't heard at all, was now a dull echo of the excrutiating pain that had haunted me for the last three years.

I decided to leave Mitchell to his work, murmuring that I would probably come back the next day. Just so the girl had someone to sit with her in case she decided to wake, and stole from the room. When I got home, I wasn't entirely surprised to find Alice sitting on the porch steps. She'd probably seen me going to see this girl and her bouncy legs and excited thoughts did not disappoint me.

_I knew you would eventually go see her! That _has_ to be a good sign._

I knew exactly where her thoughts would go and tried to silence them with a quick jerk of my head. "Don't get ahead of yourself, Alice." I mumbled and dropped down onto the step beside her. Carefully since Esme would hate us denting the wood she had painstakingly searched for when creating this dream-like porch. "Just because I went to see her doesn't mean anything will come of it."

"Oh please." She spoke aloud then and her gold eyes rolled perfectly in their sockets. "You need to move on, Edward. You know she wouldn't begrudge you the same happiness you undoubtedly gave her."

"Stop." I barked and winced when the coarse tone reverberated back into my ears. "Sorry." I smiled at her sheepishly then sighed as I ran both hands over my face. "The girl will probably never regain consciousness. You heard Carlisle, the longer she stays catatonic, the lower her chances of survival are."

"Well...." Alice trailed off then and let her thoughts speak for her. She hadn't forseen any of this, I knew that, but it didn't make the images suddenly filling my mind any easier to bare. This girl, who none of us knew, with the same cold and hard skin we had. Her eyes glowing bright crimson in the universal sign of what she had become. A newborn vampire.

"No." Another sharp, quick answer and I was on my feet again. I knew that Alice just wanted me to find what she had with Jasper. And for all intents and purposes, I'd already accomplished that. But my stubbornness had sacrificed that love. Esme had entertained this idea too when Carlisle had told her about the unclaimed girl laying in the ICU. He'd gambled with love on a handful of occasions. First, when he had created Esme to be his companion. That had worked out better than either of them could have hoped and the love between them was impossibly deep and unbreakable. The second had happened when he saved Rosalie from her painful death at the hands of her fiance. He had brought her into this life with the hope that she and I would fall madly in love and be there for one another. It hadn't worked, of course, and a couple of years later; she'd asked Carlisle to change Emmett for her. He was her perfect match in all the ways that truly mattered and he was so much better at handling her and the way her mind worked than any of us could've attempted. Alice and her soulmate, Jasper, had joined us of their own accord. Both came from separate families, found each other, then chose to adopt us in a life where humans were not drained for our sustinance.

I left Alice out on the porch. She was so lost in her new thoughts that she probably didn't even bother to register my departure. I could hear several members of my family in various locations of the house. Esme was working in her office on the first floor, Rosalie and Emmett were at war in the living room, rematching on some video game that she had kicked his ass at the last time they played. Jasper was at the bank of computers that lined the south wall of our house, his reflection clearly outlined in the floor-to-ceiling glass that lined the entire back of the house. Honing in, I found the exact person I needed to speak with. Of course, Carlisle was up in his office pouring over research. No doubt trying to find this girl's identity.

I knocked lightly on the door once I'd reached it, and poked my head in to see exactly what my father was up to. He sat at his desk, a large leatherbound volume open in front of him. He looked up at my entrance and smiled before waving me inside. "Edward, come in. Alice told me that you went to the hospital."

"I did." I consented and closed the door behind me. It was a useless gesture, my vampire family could hear exceptionally well, no matter how many physical boundaries lay in their path. I crossed the room in four quick strides and threw my body gently into the chair positioned to the right of Carlisle's dark mahogony desk. "There was no change, though I did scare the wits out of some male nurse."

Carlisle's laughter was easy as he reclined in the high-backed leather chair that had been in this office for centuries. Carlisle couldn't bare to part with anything, this chair was one of the first things he had bought for himself when we began to create the tangible markers of our home. "I'm sure I will hear all about it when I go into work tonight. May I ask why you decided to go see this girl? You haven't given any other girl a second thought since...."

He didn't need to finish his statement, or even say her name; I winced. He had thought her name, that was enough to send the painful knots twisting in my stomach. "I know." I whispered and stared at a speck of fallen dust that had clung to one of the legs on Carlisle's desk. "I just...couldn't help myself. You've thought about her so much since she became your patient that I just had to go see her. I felt almost _compelled_ to see if she actually existed." My lips twisted into a grimace of a smile before I shrugged and let the expression dissolve.

Carlisle stood then and strode around to lean back against the corner of his desk, directly in front of me. "Edward, I can't imagine how painful the last three years have been for you. Especially with the knowledge you have unnecessarily tormented yourself with. You did what you thought was right by Bella, no one can fault either of you for moving on."

"But that's just it." I suddenly growled in frustration and vaulted from the chair. My body twisted on its own accord as I turned my back on Carlisle. My fingers tightened into fists against my sides and when I couldn't loosen them, I just shoved my hands into the pockets of my khakis. "I haven't moved on." I announced and whirled around once more to face my father, his face expectant yet composed as he watched my every movement. "Not even in the slightest. She has. She's married now and undoubtedly on her way to creating the family I couldn't give her. So how I do I move on? And what does that even entail?! How does a vampire move on once he's left a girl to give her the future he's incapable of."

Carlisle sighed and finally moved once my mini tirade had faded from my lips. He crossed the room to me in no time, clapping his hand to my shoulder as he tried to capture my gaze. "There are no easy answers, Edward. Not in the human world or this one. Especially this one!" He sighed and let his hand fall back to his side as he turned away from me slightly. "But there has to be someone out there for you, son. I can feel it, you are not destined to go throughout eternity alone."

"So then...what?" I asked and threw my hands up helplessly. "Find someone with absolutely no family and change her? Hope that this time, we fall for one another so that I'm no longer the odd Cullen out? That's not fair to whoever is cursed with that _honor_." I nearly spat the last word out and angrily twisted my body toward the glass wall. The sun was just beginning to set, the bright orange orb always obscured by the fringe of trees that lined the back half of our property. Just like the house in Forks had been. Completely hidden and difficult to find if the person wasn't actively searching for it. Too many things were beginning to remind me of the life I'd forced my family to leave behind all those years ago. The one time I'd asked my family to relocate on my behalf and I _still _felt like I was running from something. Perhaps it was the ghost of the existance I could have had if it weren't for my stubbornness. Or perhaps it was something else entirely. Whatever it was, I suddenly began to wonder what was stretching out in front of me now as I watched the sun sink lower and lower into the trees from my father's study.


	3. Chapter 3

_Stephenie Meyer's the genius, I'm just having fun._

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**CHAPTER THREE:**

Another gloomy day had dawned in Hanover, a light sheen of water cascading down from the sky at random intervals as the day progressed. In so many ways, it was just like any other day; go to school, suffer through montony, go home, wait for night to fall then go feed. The only change on this day was my hunting partner. Rosalie.

For reasons I couldn't entirely understand, she had taken it upon herself to accompany me. Her eyes were still a light shade of amber and the faintest of flushes still colored her alabaster skin. Yet she wanted to go hunt. With me, no less. Her least favorite person in our entire family. She'd never really made it a secret that I'd irritated her from the first moment she heard my voice. But yet, here we were; freshly full and seated on a large boulder surrounded by a wide grouping of trees.

There was a small amount of tension in the air, something that never entirely went away whenever we were around one another. No one could really explain it, maybe we had just spent too much time grating on each other's nerves to progress past it. But it was something I had grown accustomed to. But before I was really aware of it, air pushed past my lips noisily in attempt to break through some of the fallen silence.

"Just go ahead and ask, Edward." She sighed and flipped bright blonde hair behind her shoulder, still staring straight ahead of her.

"Why did you volunteer to come hunting with me?" I decided to be blunt. That was something Rosalie always appreciated. She seemed to hate whenever someone beat around the proverbial bush when it came to her. "It's not like I'm your favorite person. I've never held that role in our family."

Whatever I'd just said seemed to silence her. Either that or I had struck a very deep chord I knew absolutely nothing about. Either way, it took her a little while to vocally answer my question. Her thoughts were a dizzying myraid with all the different directions she wanted to proceed down. So I sat as patiently as I could in the new-fallen silence, idly wondering which words would come out of her mouth next.

"I came with you because I think you need some perspective." Rosalie never failed to shock me when it came to things I least expected. I knew that things had become strained between several of my family members and myself. One of those members had become Rosalie. She'd never been able to fully understand the attraction Bella had held to me. The way her mind worked had prevented her from seeing the tiny girl the way I did. There was some jealousy and a fear that things would end badly between us, thus pushing some unwanted heat onto her and Emmett. Those were who she thought of most whenever assertaining a bad situation. Herself and Emmett. In that order.

Snorting back a laugh, I just shook my head slowly and rose into a crouch. This wasn't a conversation I particularly wanted to have right then, not when I realized the direction of her thoughts. Of course, she wanted to talk about the mystery girl that was _still_ plaguing Carlisle. "I think my perspective is perfectly all right, but thank you."

"Oh sit back down." She huffed and blindly reached out to grab my arm. I was back on my ass before her hand around my wrist registered, as lost as I was in her sudden train of thought. "I'm just saying that, if Carlisle is right about this girl, she's gone through hell recently."

"And you're suddenly concerned with a human's wellbeing? Especially a human that Carlisle has been tempted to change? We know nothing about her, Rose."

"But you're interested in her. It's obvious, Edward. You've been emotionally dead since we left Forks and everyone's noticed it. But now...now there's a little intensity behind your eyes. The same intensity I first saw spark when _she_ came into your life."

Ah, my lovingly conceited sister. She still refused to call Bella by name, probably working under the assumption that the name caused me some kind of physical pain. It had, in the very beginning when I forced myself to exist without the aid of my large family. The separation had been tough, but I figured everyone would have been okay with her name being used when I rejoined them. Apparently Rosalie was yet another exception to yet another rule.

"It doesn't matter." I muttered flatly and sprang from the boulder we'd been perched on. I didn't know what Rosalie had seen or thought she saw. But either way, she was wrong. I was now determined to prove that to her. She would hate it when she realized this, Rosalie absolutely _loathed_ being wrong. But she had to see that I was still how she described me. Emotionally dead. It did no good for me to care about anyone outside my family.

The house was buzzing with a nervous kind of excitement when I finally returned home. Rosalie had yet to catch up with me and I could only guess it was to give me some time and space to think. Either that or she just didn't want to deal with me. Either option seemed very likely when thinking of my sister.

Esme was the first one I noticed when I got home, stress creating lines I never really saw on her face otherwise. "What's going on?" The question slipped past my lips without any hesitation as I walked around the wide island that took up a good portion of the kitchen we never used. After all, what vampire needed to know their way around a human kitchen? Her steps faltered just long enough for me to fully catch up, but then she was gone yet again. With a groan of exasperation, my jaw clenched as I followed her up to the second floor of the house. The layout was quite different from that of our house in Forks and it was something I'd become extremely grateful for. The less reminders I had, the better I could pretend that things were getting easier for me. But when I reached the room that Esme had suddenly disappeared into, all thoughts of Bella quickly fell to the back of my mind.

Several members of my family had already crowded into the newly furnished bedroom. I was a little surprised to actually see Carlisle home from work, but that took a momentary backseat when I noticed the bed I'd actually moved in here was now occupied. By one vampire and one human. Probing into the minds of my gathered family was effortless, a natural habit as I tried desperately to piece everything together. I'd missed something major, there was no doubt about that. But the only thoughts I could clearly focus on, the thoughts that gave me the answers I was seeking was, of course, Carlisle.

_I couldn't just leave her there to die. Such a waste._

A waste. That was the word he was using to describe this girl's slow decent into death. His solution was the same remedy he'd relied on when creating me, Esme, Rosalie, and Emmett. He was preparing to turn this girl into a vampire.

"_No._" The single syllable brushed past my lips so quickly that I even had to take a second to make sure I'd been the one to speak the word aloud. Four pair of eyes, ranging in color from vibrant gold to bittering amber fell on me simultaneously and I would have cringed in any other situation. But now my back just stiffened, as if my spine was suddenly being soldered to a piece of metal as I stood gaping at my creator. "You can't. There has to be another option."

"There isn't." Carlisle chose to speak that aloud, letting the rest of our family in on the internal conversation we'd been trying to exchange.

"I've seen it." Alice's voice was so soft that I had another moment of uncertainty. Had I heard her right?

"You've _seen it_?" The words felt like acid dripping off my tongue as I twisted to stare at my tiny sister, who was perched almost protectively beside the still-unconscious girl. "We know nothing about her, Alice. This is the exact thing we are supposed to avoid, not encourage."

"No one avoided it when we were created." Emmett spoke for the first time since I had barged into the room, and I could see Esme's face fall from the corner of my eye. She no doubt wanted this girl in our family very much. I was abruptly aware that I was fighting a losing battle. My family had decided, without me. This girl, nameless and futureless because of an unknown brutality, was going to become a Cullen in a very short time.

It wasn't possible, but yet I felt my spine straighten even more as I nodded curtly. "I'm not going to be here for it. Someone let me know once everything's settled." Then, without warning or another glance around the room, I turned and nearly flew outside. I couldn't just stand around and watch a girl, some human I didn't even know writhe and scream in agony as she became one of us. It wasn't right, none of this felt real to me. I hadn't even been able to contend the place this girl had adopted in Carlisle's professional life before she was suddenly thrust into the darkest part of our life. There was no hope for her.

No hope.

Those words pounded mercilessly through my head as I ran. I had no destination in mind, I only wanted to be as far from the house as possible in case this girl's thoughts suddenly became crystal clear to me. I'd been okay with the monotone buzz her mental voice had adopted while she lay unconsicous in a hospital bed. The possibility of hearing her, listening to her innermost secrets and fears as she passed through the mortal veil was suddenly so unbearable that I actually stopped to lean against a nearby, thick spruce. There was a hollow ache suddenly forming in my chest, though I knew there was no real basis for this pain. It was merely superficial, this girl's pain somehow inflicting mine in a way no other human had been able to. Save one very special exception.

It was a little unsettling that as I thought of Carlisle biting this unknown girl, that my thoughts would stray to Bella. She had wanted this life, to be with me for the rest of eternity. I'd strongly opposed it, not wanting to take her future and her humanity from her. I'd left to preserve all that, to give her the future I knew she would never have while in love with me.

And now, I didn't know the distance as I let the tree beside me support some of my weight, a girl was lying in my house; receiving the gift I'd unceremoniously taken from Bella. From the girl I'd wanted forever.

Fate really was a cruel creature when a person let themself sit and stew on it long enough.

I was acutely aware of just how much time had passed when my cell phone vibrated against my thigh. It hadn't left the confines of my pocket since I tore from the house, but it flew effortlessly to my ear as if on it's own power.

Alice was calling to let me know that the worst was past. It was now safe for me to return home. To undoubtedly meet the newest member of my family.

I broke into an easy stride once I'd pocketed the sleek, silver device. I never had been able to get over just how effortless all the physical aspects of my life came to me. Running like this, appearing as a blur to human eyes, had been the equivilant of breathing while I'd been human. I remembered very little from that time of my life, the pain from my own transformation overshadowed it all. But as the years turned into a century, I'd been able to grasp a few reminders of Edward Anthony Masen. A human boy hell-bent on becoming a soldier, sold on the glorified version of a grisly war that would have surely ended my life on the cusp of manhood. I'd only been seventeen at the time, I could remember anxiously awaiting my eighteenth birthday when the Influenza claimed my father's life.

Edward Masen Sr. had never regained consciousness. But I knew from Carlisle's thoughts, that Elizabeth Masen, my mother; had been alert enough throughout the whole ordeal to watch me weaken in death. It had been her final words, I learned much later with my supernatural gift, that had convinced Carlisle of his wavering decision. My mother's plea to the immortal doctor had been both my saving grace and my death sentence. All rolled into one confusing little package.

I made it home in barely any time, so consumed as I was in my thoughts that everything else faded away. I was greeted with silence as I trudged up the porch stairs and took that first step into the house. There was no heartbeat to greet me this time, though it had been very faint during my last encounter. Carlisle had been right, I realized belatedly. The girl had been just hours from her untimely death and I idly began to wonder just how much this girl would remember of her former life. Would she remember her name? Relive in exact detail what had ultimately delivered her into the arms of Carlisle's compassionate death?

I receieved my answers all too quickly when I retraced my steps into the bedroom I'd first found the girl in. She was still unconscious, right where she'd been when I left the house last. But the bruises that marred her skin had faded into the smooth marble that would now be her skin. I would never see just how tanned her skin was when there were no bruises to cover her flesh. I could tell now, as I stared at her uninterrupted, that her lips were very full and perfectly shaped into what I would forever see as a pout. She was just a child. No younger than I had been, no older than Rosalie. Forever encased in a body that reflected innocence she may or may not have once possessed.

The air shifted around me, signalling the arrival of Alice as I continued to stand stoically in the doorway. Her thoughts gave her away before she could formally say anything. She was thinking of the vision that had convinced Carlisle of this monstrosity. The girl wrapped arm in arm with Alice, her skin as chalky and unblemished as our own. Her eyes were crimson, no hints of their former hue able to survive the bloody mark of identification. "It's going to be fine."

I nodded curtly at my tiny sister's whispered statement, my eyes not able to stray very far from the motionless girl in front of me. Her heart had just stopped, I noted. Took it's final beat before I'd entered the clearing in front of the house. How had I not been able to hear that?

Alice's internal monologue continued as I stood there, almost as if I was inviting her to intrude on my gloomy opposition of this girl. She was trying to sway me, to give me some piece of proof that what had just transpired here would work out okay. It wouldn't, I had a faint feeling of that in the tightening chords that had once served as my intestines. All of this, saving this girl from death, would come back to haunt us somehow. It just irked me that I was powerless to figure out _how._ To accertain just how significantly and deeply this girl would tear at the bonds of my family.

Unable to bear anymore, I turned and headed for Carlisle's study. His answers were the ones I was once again seeking. I knew he hadn't left her side once since the venom had been injected into her bloodstream. The only reason he wasn't with her now was because he feared something had gone wrong with the transformation. Perhaps there had just been too much damage for her to come back from. Vampire venom could fix nearly anything, but miracles were still beyond our scope.

"Carlisle." I murmered almost uncertainly as I closed us up in his spacious office. The last time I'd come to see him, just after seeing this girl for the first time in the hospital, came back to me in flashes of mental images. But they were all pushed away once I'd reached the desk and leaned against it with both hands. Almost as if I needed supporting yet again. I couldn't remember the last time I'd felt this weakened.

"Edward," He sighed and sounded just as tired as he had the day this girl had come into his life. "I was wondering when you would be returning home."

"Alice called me. I think I came back into hearing range just after the girl's heart stopped." I wanted to cringe at how cold and icy my voice sounded. But there was no way I could rearrange the sound, not with all the emotional turmoil swirling violently through me. A good portion of it, surprisingly, was reserved for the girl we were all waiting on to regain consciousness. To wake up and discover the monster we'd turned her into. "How did it go?"

Carlisle leaned heavily back against his chair, relaxing a little when the animosity drained from my voice. Yet I didn't move, I couldn't. "It went surprisingly well, all things considered. She never regained consciousness. She just...laid there, occasionally convulsing or twitching as the venom spread through her damaged body. All of her internal injuries have already been healed. She no longer needs the bandaging ER physicians had to wrap around her abdomen."

"What were the extent of her injuries?" Curiosity replaced anger as I sank into the chair I always occupied while in Carlisle's office.

"Whoever had beaten her, stabbed her as well. Several times and they were all directed at her abdomen. One of the surgeons had to actually go in and retrieve the tip of the knife used in her attack. It was all...very ghastly when she was first discovered. I can only imagine how much pain she'd endured throughout it all." The transformation not withstanding, he added in silently. I couldn't be sure if he only thought that part for my benefit or his own.

"So what happens now?" I sighed and leaned toward the right enough that my temple easily sank into my raised hand. "Why hasn't she awoken?"

"I don't know." Frustration clipped at his words as he pushed himself out the chair and began to pace. I'd never really known vampires to be restless, but Carlisle was proving it's possiblity. "The scans of her brain showed no trauma, thankfully. There was some pre-existing damage to the part controlling her short-term memory, but that was all. None of us could figure out why she hadn't regained consciousness while still human."

"Maybe she was waiting to die."


	4. Chapter 4

_**AUTHOR'S NOTE:**__ I'm so sorry for the lapse in time between posting. Things have been so hectic for me that I haven't had much time to sit down and write. I haven't given up on this story, far from it. Every spare thought has been trained on it and the progression I want to delve into. So! Without further ado, the next chapter. Hope you guys enjoy and thanks so much for the reviews this story has already gotten. Though the number is low, each one is extremely valuable to me._

_Stephenie Meyer's the genius, I'm just a geek with an idea._

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**CHAPTER FOUR:**

Time was now being counted in thirty-minute incriments. Everyone had taken it upon themselves to check on the girl regularly to mark any change in her progress. Carlisle, of course, was stressing about the transformation and silently fearful that he hadn't injected enough venom into her bloodstream. His biggest worry at this point was that he had doomed this girl to death after all.

I stayed as far away from the room as I could get in the spacious house, but I could clearly tell through the thoughts of my family that Carlisle had been able to save her in time. The mental images carried by Alice and Esme especially showed a picture perfect vampire. All that was left now was for the girl to wake up and learn of her new life.

I wasn't entirely aware that I was pacing until I glanced at a wall for at least the third time. Sighing quietly, I let my head flop back for a second and tried to reorganize my thoughts. Jasper couldn't handle the current emotional climate of the house and had decided to take Alice out on a spur-of-the-moment hunt. Carlisle and Esme would be taking the girl out when she awoken. It seemed oddly fitting that this girl's new set of parents would be the first to teach her the lessons of hunting that they'd passed on to the rest of us.

My feet seemed to have a mind of their own as they carried me through the house and before long, I found myself at the doorway of the girl's room. I stepped in cautiously but stepped back even faster when I found that she wasn't alone. Rosalie was standing near the closet, arms tightly drawn against her chest as she stared almost impatiently at the girl. It seemed I wasn't the only one anxiously awaiting the completion of her transformation.

If only Alice could have pinpointed how much longer we would have to wait.

"Edward." Rosalie acknowledged me in a clipped tone, her eyes never straying from the motionless newborn. Her hair had been recently washed and combed back against her skull, leaving more of her face untouched and new sleep clothes adorned her body. All courtesy of Alice, no doubt. She never overlooked an opportunity to play dress-up. This girl seemed to be the perfect guinea pig; she couldn't fight back or argue with Alice's selections.

"No change?" I asked in an almost breathless whisper, ignoring the manner in which my blonde sister had addressed me. I could clearly hear what she was thinking about. Her thoughts were on the girl now in front of me, idly wondering what would happen when she opened her eyes and realized her fate. But the thing that surprised me most was the almost-caring undertone of her thoughts. For once, she wasn't thinking of herself. She was hoping this girl faired better than she had during those first fateful hours.

"No." Rose sighed and finally moved, her posture breaking from the stone immobility it had just held. Blonde hair was flipped impatiently behind her shoulder, she glanced at the girl once more then stole from the room quietly.

It felt like the venom in my system had been replaced with ice water as I slowly made my way to the side of the bed she was laying on. It was a little surreal to see her skin looking exactly as mine did, no longer marred with discolorations and visible brutality. Now, the expression on her face looked peaceful as her eyelids stayed drawn tightly over her eyes. I found myself once again drawn in by this girl, her thoughts a little more clear than they'd been while she lay dying in the hospital. But yet I couldn't make anything out and it frustrated me. At the same time, I was thankful for the low buzz of her thoughts. It meant that she was still functioning as properly as could be. Her heart lay dead in her chest, the rise and fall of her chest rhythmic and barely noticable. If it weren't for my superior eyesight, I wasn't sure I would ever have been able to see the movement.

So lost in my thoughts, I didn't notice immediately when her eyelids fluttered then peeled back. But suddenly, her thoughts became very clear. She had no idea where she was or what had happened to her.

The thing that rattled me the most was the fact that she also had absolutely no idea who she was.

I had to be careful when I looked up, knowing that the slightest movement might unnerve her and throw her into hysterics. My eyes lifted slowly from her hand, which I had unknowingly been transfixed on, and lifted to her eyes. Of course, they were blood red and rimmed with the dark shadow of our true nature. But her expression was shockingly relaxed, as if she was laying there trying to figure out how to piece a puzzle together.

"Who are you?" She asked softly, her voice striking me in ways I hadn't expected. The tenor was a ringing chime that I'd become familiar with through the voices of my female siblings and mother. But that simple question still struck me in the oddest way. I hadn't expected her to focus on me first, instead of herself.

"Edward." I muttered and looked back down at the blanket spread out beneath her. "My name is Edward Cullen."

"Edward." She repeated slowly, her new eyes rising to the ceiling as she quickly processed the sliver of information I'd just given her. Her thoughts ran in a frenzy from there, disjointed fragments somehow coming together to form some of the most coherent sentences I'd ever picked out of someone else's head. Her eyelids fluttered then slowly closed as her chest continued to rise and fall in a calming gesture often adopted by humans. She was wondering why she could no longer feel her heart beat, but wasn't entirely sure how to inquire about that yet. "Do you know how I got here?"

I was strangely thankful for the question. It was one that I, at least, could answer. Clearing my throat needlessly, I nodded then moved around the bed to sit on the other side. She didn't seem the least bit startled by me, the thoughts in her mind reminding me that I wasn't exactly keeping my human mask tightly in place. I was way too comfortable in this house. After all, it was the one place where we could be ourselves and not have to worry about outside forces watching our every step. "You was a patient of my father's, Dr. Carlisle Cullen. He brought you here to recover when no one came to the hospital for you."

"I wasn't...claimed?" The emotion in her voice could only be described as pained but she didn't open her eyes to look at me.

I nodded in spite of that then momentarily wanted to smack myself as soon as I did it. She could probably feel the vibrations in the bed shake, but gave no indication that she felt any different. It was becoming easier to hear her thoughts now, since I had already heard her speak. Her mind was no longer the faint buzz it had been while she lay human and in the hospital. "I'm sorry, you weren't. Carlisle couldn't bare to leave you there once you were well enough to be discharged."

"You're lying." She blurted out suddenly then sat up quickly with her eyes trained on my face.

"What?" I couldn't think. How did this girl know I was lying? It was in my very nature, now our nature, to lie and do so convincingly. Our existance and the secrecy of that very anomoly depended on it. We _had_ to be convincing liars with no one the wiser. It was difficult to lie to members of our own kind, but this girl was still so raw that I'd had no doubt I could pull the sentence off flawlessly.

Apparently I'd misjudged and the look on this girl's face told me so. Now that there was some animation to her face and body, she looked rather pretty. She no longer held the distinct impression of a corpse awaiting burial. Even though her skin was nearly paper white and ice cold, she actually looked alive and healthy. "I..." She trailed off after the first syllable and frowned throughtfully at the bedspread between us. "I'm not entirely sure why, but I just know you're lying to me about why I was brought here. I can't explain it."

Huh. First time I'd ever encountered anything like this.

Before I could think of anything else to say, two new figures filled the room. Carlisle and Esme. Alice was undoubtedly back from hunting and had just filled them in on the girl's awakening. It was time now for her to be filled in on the monster she'd just become. I rose obediently when I realized Carlisle wanted my spot and backed out of the room as silently as possible. The thoughts of my parents filled my mind as I walked down the hallway and headed to my own room, no amount of distance was going to prevent me from them telling this girl what she now was. No longer human, an outcast from the world she'd unknowingly been ripped from.

I felt Alice following me as I entered my room and thoughtlessly flung my body onto the large couch that always lined at least one wall of my room. The setup of my room was very similiar to the setup in Forks, but when my mind tried to recreate past images; I shut down completely and threw my arm over my eyes to keep out the artificial light Alice had flicked on while following me.

"What was she thinking when she woke up?"

Of course, my family would ask me for the obtrusive exploration that only I was capable of. This poor girl, she wasn't going to be able to have any secrets with me around. Her mind was now completely unlocked to me, and I could only imagine how that was going to be explained. "She had absolutely no idea who she is. She doesn't remember anything."

"Not even her name?!" The shock in my tiny sister's voice was almost comical, if it wasn't so depressing for the girl now moving around on the second level of the house. She was, in every sense of the term, a clean slate. Whatever past transgressions she had, whatever embarrassing trials or tribulations were now lost to her. She had no memories, not a single one.

"Not even her name." I sighed the response out and dropped my arm to my stomach with the realization that Alice wasn't going to go away. She had too much on her mind and it was starting to drive her a little crazy. She had to get it out before she exploded and I was the only logical choice to unload on. All because I could see into this girl's mind. "I'm sure it will come back to her. Eventually."

"But we can't just call her 'the girl'! That would be rude."

"Then what do you propose we call her, Alice?" I asked in a huff. I knew I was being unfairly sharp with her, but the perils of this girl's transformations, as well as hearing her voice for the first time, were climbing into the confines of my mind that I'd tried so hard to keep locked away. That was a part of myself I refused to visit, something that had become like second nature in the past three years. There were just some parts of me, deep and hidden facets that would never see the light of day again. Not if I had anything to say about it.

But judging by this new, unknown girl; that was something I would no longer be able to control. As much as I tried to fight it, this mysterious young woman was already climbing underneath my skin and embedding herself so deeply that I was powerless to even try to stop it. What was her transformation and new place in my family going to end up doing to me?

That was just one of many questions I did not have an answer for.

Alice left me eventually, probably realizing that I was not going to be forthcoming with the information she thought I possessed. I was just as ignorant in this situation as the rest of my family and Alice didn't really like this too much. She wasn't getting any new flickers to this girl's future, like when she would remember her birth name. That unnerved her more than my lack of knowlege. I stayed in my room as Carlisle and Esme got the girl ready for her first hunting trip, still telling her everything she would need to know now. Even though there was some distance between us, growing larger as they moved to the first level of the house; I could still hear her thoughts as clearly as if she were standing right next to me. And surprisingly, she wasn't really having any trouble with being a vampire.

Maybe that was due to the fact that her previous life was unknown. She was trying hard to remember something, anything. But it was a failed attempt. The only new conclusions she had reached came from the advice and knowlege being expelled by the head of the Cullen family. Esme was letting Carlisle do all the talking. The same course of action he'd taken with each and every single one of us before her. It had always fallen on Carlisle to explain the world of vampirism that he'd unknowingly created. It was through him that we had this lifestyle. Carlisle Cullen was the reason his wife and children did not take human life. Of course, we had all been given the same option. We were able to strike out on our own any time we wanted. Carlisle didn't hold anyone a prisoner in this life. We were all willing participants. Well, as willing as one could get in our situation.

And as he asked this girl for her choice, whether or not she would be willing to live with us and adjust to our way of life, I found myself waiting anxiously to hear her response. They were just about to walk out the front door and my feet moved me swiftly from the privacy of my bedroom, to the second floor landing. All so that I could still hear her response in case they left the house quickly on their hunt.

Her voice, clear as a bell and throaty despite the ringing tenor, was loud and clear as they walked toward the fringe of trees about twenty yards from the front porch. "If it's all right with you and your family, I would like to stay here. I need all the help I can get with this and...remembering who I used to be."


	5. Chapter 5

_**AUTHOR'S NOTE: **Yet another chapter! After this one, everything is going to start unraveling. Thank you so much to everyone reading and being patient with me. The chapters are flowing faster than I can write them out now! And I need ideas! I'm wanting something more than the mystery of the new girl to be the forefront of the story so please, if you guys have ideas? Throw 'em at me in reviews! I'll take everything into consideration and if I use them, of course, credit will be given._

_Stephenie Meyer's the genius, I'm just playing in her sandbox._

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**CHAPTER FIVE:**

Once the girl awoke to her new life, things became a little more lively around the house.

I wasn't entirely sure if it was because this girl was just as mysterious to herself as she was to us, or the proverbial fresh blood infusion into our large family. Either way, the girl was no longer alone. Most of the time, she was accompanied by Alice. The rare occasions when Rosalie remembered the newest member of our family was lessening. Even Jasper and Emmett were trying to help her adjust, filling her time with amusing stories of hunts gone wrong, and countless jokes that Emmett had stored up during his time with our family.

Sitting in my room now, I was dimly aware that the girl was alone. Probably for the first time since she'd been brough to our house, she was being given the time to set up her new bedroom. It was located on the same floor as my own, something that would have amused me in any other circumstance. It seemed my family wasn't going to let me do what I really wanted most; they weren't going to make it easy on me to keep my distance from the newest Cullen.

If it were possible, she was even more compelling to me than she'd been when I first walked into her hospital room. Alice, Rosalie, and Esme had gotten to her, helping coif her hair in a stylish array of spikes that kind of mirrored Alice's short dark hair. The strands were still dark red and would be for the rest of eternity. Whatever product she'd put on her hair in human life would stay with her throughout the rest of her undead days. Even though her eyes were now a vibrant bloody crimson, almost the exact same shade as her hair; I found myself wondering what color her eyes had been when she was human. Her skin was as smooth and pale as our own, deceptively strong against the bone and tendons that made up her tiny frame. She was about a couple inches taller than Alice, who stood at 4'8". This girl was an even five foot and probably weighed about 90 to 95 pounds. No one would ever find her anything other than weak and defenseless on first glance.

We all knew better.

A curious sound filled my ears suddenly and my eyebrows rose instinctively. I couldn't stop myself as I climbed off the leather couch I'd been perched on while reading, and traveled down the long isle of hallway that separated my room from hers. I stopped just outside the doorway and looked inside carefully. The walls were now ligh blue, a color that had been picked out by the new occupant, with a dark brown table holding a stereo almost as expensive as my own off the ground. She already had an impressive CD collection to her credit now and the thoughts in her head made me smile just a little.

_This is all too much._ She thought as an unfamiliar song pulsed through the room at a respectful decipal. _I really need to figure out a way to stop their generocity but..._

I blinked in surprise when her thoughts suddenly stopped. I could feel her eyes on me and realized that I'd just caught her dancing around as she messed with the large pile of clothes that had been dumped on the wide, frameless bed she'd agreed to let fill her bedroom. It surprised me a little that she'd actually chosen a bed, but who was I to have an opinion on her choices? "I'm sorry." She muttered instantly and let her bloody eyes fall onto the rich, dark blue carpet beneath her bare feet. She was dressed simply in a pair of cotton running shorts and a tight-fitted matching tank top. Rosalie's influence on her wardrobe.

She said more but I couldn't force my brain to comprehend it. I was too lost in a dizzying moment of pure and undiluted lust. All for this girl, who was still nameless. Despite her size, her breasts were full and created an enticing expanse of cleavage beneath the swooping neckline of her top. Her stomach was invisible underneath the white cotton ribbing, the bottom hem ending just an inch shy of the waistband of her black shorts to expose her visible hipbones. Those also looked perfect on her toned and slender legs, covering just enough of her lower body that her hips and rounded bottom from view. But they did nothing to hide the musculature of her thighs from my eyes. Shaking my head slightly, I turned my head and instinctively closed my eyes so I couldn't take in more of her appearance than I needed to. She was beautiful. More than beautiful, she was enthralling. Immortality suited her like a glove and easily woke the part of my humanity that I'd kept under tight lock and key.

"You have nothing to apologize for." I finally murmered, my voice barely above a whisper as I fought off another wave of intense desire. Images began to fill my head then, all centering around the girl and pinning her against the nearest flat surface. The darker side of my personality lusted for something that wasn't mine to crave. My virginal desire began to ache for her and I idly wondered what it would be like to just give in. To let this girl try and fill the gaping hole I'd consciously ripped open by leaving Forks.

"You sure?" She spoke again, her voice a perfectly blended harmony of husk and bells. She'd had a very deep, but beautiful voice when she was still human, I was reminded of suddenly. She sounded very much like a young human brunette actress on one of Alice's favorite TV shows. But for the life...or rather existance, of me, I could not recall that human actress' name or what I'd briefly seen her featured on.

"I'm sure." I answered and finally looked over at her again. She was fully facing me now, her arms drawn protectively against her chest, short fingernails slightly digging into the skin of her arm. Which, of course, didn't cave under the pressure of her fingers. "I just heard your music playing and didn't know the song."

She nodded her head slowly but didn't look convinced. She'd had the same expression on her face just moments after waking up, when I'd tried to lie to her about how she'd come to be in my home. That hadn't been a fluke, I realized this now. "Do you want to borrow the CD? He's actually pretty good." She gestured at the stereo and took a cautious step toward the setup to retrieve the case. For me.

I blinked in surprise again at this rare glimpse of generocity. She was completely foreign to me, neither of us knew a thing about the other. She had no idea who I was, but yet she had such an openness toward me that I was momentarily knocked off balance. But she wasn't entirely open, I noted by her posture. There was something deeply rooted within her, a sense of unease that guarded her from me a bit.

Suddenly thankful for that part that kept her just outside of my reach, I shook my head and managed a small, mangled smile to cross my lips. "I'll get it later. You're still listening to it."

She nodded again, and the unconvincing look smoothed out slightly against her smooth forehead and slight indentions of her cheekbones. The transformation had only taken some of the roundness from her cheeks. "You won't, but thank you for saying it anyway."

My head jerked up reflexively, but she had already turned her back to me and began to readdress the mound of clothes on her bed. I just stood there and watched, committing every flex and twitch of the muscles in her back as she leaned, stretched, and folded. She'd been very fit and athletic during her human life. Something that hadn't been lost in her brutal transformation.

Air felt clogged around my vocal chords as I turned and left her to her work. Instead of going back to my own bedroom, as I'd intended, I went to Carlisle's study. It was located on the second floor of the house, occupying one of the four rooms on that level. I knocked respectfully and waited until he'd acknowledged me vocally before I entered.

My father was hard at work behind the wide mahogony desk he'd held onto for countless years. Papers were neatly stacked in tiny piles across the surface as he reclined in his beloved chair. "What can I do for you, Edward?"

I smiled in spite of myself at the warm and open grin on my father's face and eased into the chair across from him, throwing my left ankle over my right thigh as I slouched into the upholstry. "Just wanted to talk to you about the girl. Have you found anything else out about her?" I was sure she was wishing we'd find out her name already so she would stop being referred to as 'the girl'.

"Nothing yet. No one has claimed anyone missing that fits her description." Carlisle sighed heavily and frowned at a stack of papers to his immediate right. The girl's hospital records, I recognized the wide manilla envelope with the hospitals logo etched on it. "She's been trying, bless her, but she hasn't remembered anything from her human life."

"Do you think that's helping her with the transition?" I asked impulsively. Her reaction to all of this reminded me of Emmett's reaction and even reminded Alice of her own. Alice had been in a very similar boat, neither of them had any memories or thoughts of a former life to draw on once their hearts had stopped. Alice had been shut up in an insane asylum by her parents, all because she could see the future. Or at least some part of it. She had only learned of her past after....

I cut the thought off there with a visible wince, which didn't pass my father's patient eyes. Thankfully he didn't comment on it. He didn't really need to, we both knew who I'd just forced myself not to think about. "It most likely is. She's been relying on Alice a lot over the past couple of days. She seems to have so much in common with our family already. She's reminding them all of something they've dealt with before."

"And Rosalie?" Another impulse question. One that I couldn't squash in time.

A long sigh passed my father's lips as he sat up straight and leaned onto his desk. "And Rosalie. I haven't been able to gather up the courage to tell her the extent of her injuries yet, though she's asked on at least two separate occasions."

"Maybe talking about it will help jog her memory. She has to remember sooner or later, Carlisle. Wouldn't it be easier for her to remember now and move on?"

"How would you have felt?" I jumped slightly in surprise when Rosalie ghosted into the room. She was angry, of course. Her thoughts gave that away before the look on her face did. _Typical guy. Has no clue what rape does to a girl's mental status._

"I'm not being insensitive." I muttered in my own defence, but it was no use. Rose had already drawn her own conclusions about me now.

"Whatever." She huffed and looked at Carlisle expectantly. "Does she know that she can trap people in a lie?"

"I'm not entirely sure." Our father sounded ancient as he slouched back into his chair once more. "I don't think she's entirely aware of it herself. She's caught herself a few times, of course. But I don't think it's a conscious awareness."

"She's not conscious of it." I responded and frowned when two pairs of eyes snapped expectantly on me. Of course, the mind-reader had to explain it all. Lovely. "When she woke up, I tried to fib a bit about why she was here. She caught me instantly and called me on it. She did the same thing earlier when I was trying to...save face."

"Save face?" Rosalie asked with a bemused look on her face. She snorted quietly under her breath, rolled her eyes, then focused on Carlisle. "Maybe that's something else that will help us figure out who she is."

"At this point," Carlisle sighed again and spread his hands out wide in front of him. "we need all the help from her that we can get. Otherwise she's always going to be a complete mystery to herself."


	6. Chapter 6

_**AUTHOR'S NOTE:**__ The truth finally starts coming out!_

_Stephenie Meyer's the genius, I'm just playing in her sandbox._

* * *

**CHAPTER SIX:**

"Is your name...Claudia?" Once again, Alice and the girl were playing the name game.

Everyone was relaxing in the large living area. I had even decided to stay in the room once we had all come back from various hunting trips. The girl was still being guarded by Carlisle and Esme, only this time Rosalie and Emmett had gone with them. That had left me with Alice and Jasper. Not that I minded. It was relaxing to be around them now, especially with the constant mystic and near-annoying excitement that filled the house.

"No." She muttered after a second or two of thought and wrinkled her nose slightly. Alice glanced at me then and I shook my head when I caught a peek of the girl's thoughts. She still had no idea what I was capable of, and I was grateful for it. The family had decided that it was up to me to explain my gift to the girl, as well as Alice with hers and Jasper with his. We didn't want to overwhelm her and possibly drive her from the safety everyone was trying to cloak the house in. Esme was still worried that the girl would balk and leave us without a second thought of hesitation. Then she truly would be lost to the world. Just as Alice had almost been once upon a time.

"Olivia?" Jasper interjected, glancing anxiously at Alice as if he was scared to talk to the enigmatic girl.

Pristine white teeth clamped down on her pouty lower lip before she slowly shook her head then threw her hands up in frustration. "It's no use! I appreciate you trying, but I'm just not going to remember my name!"

"Yes you will." Alice soothed but the girl wasn't having any of it. She frowned deeply and flew to her feet in a blinding-fast motion. I noted the surprise in her thoughts when she was momentarily distracted by that. She still wasn't used to the heightened side of her existance yet. But it was something to be expected. She was handling everything else beautiful, there had to be a fault somewhere.

Too bad Alice couldn't be deterred once she set her mind to something. She'd seen the girl regaining this part of her memory and she was relentless. Her thoughts tangled out in a frustrated web as she tried to think of more names to fire at her.

Suddenly tired of it all, I just frowned and stood as the girl turned to make her escape. "Oh pipe down, Alice. Give her a while, okay?"

I must have said something that rang a bell.

The girl spun around and her eyes blazed as she advanced on me a little. My spine stiffened with the possibility of an attack. Jasper was right on it, casting his curious gift around the room to calm the occupants. It was very relaxing to have Jasper around. Not only could he feel the emotions of anyone in the general vicinity of himself, but he could also influence those moods to suit the situation. He was trying to defuse the newborn vampire before she presumably flew off the handle.

Her eyebrows wrinkled slightly when the rush of calm hit her, halting her heated steps as she looked at our blonde brother curiously. "What did you just do?"

"I'll explain later." He promised and relaxed visibly when she nodded. He wasn't lying there. "But what made you stop? Did Edward say something that triggered a memory?"

"I think..." She frowned and trailed off before her gaze flickered onto me once more. I did _not want_ to be the center of this girl's attention. It was uncomfortable enough already, finding myself thinking of her more than I liked. "Did you say pipe?"

"Pipe?" I repeated dumbly then nodded as if I was talking to a very slow-minded human. "Yes, why?" A thought hit me suddenly and I flinched with a sudden wave of certainty. "Do you think your name's Piper?"

"Piper." She seemed to try it on for size, staring at her brand-new Converse sneakers as she repeated the name to herself several times over in rapid succession. Awareness dawned then and a bright grin was stretched across her lips when she looked up at me again. "Oh thank you!" She rushed out and easily vaulted onto me, her arms around my neck. One moment, she was hugging me tightly enough to make me want to say 'ow' then the next, she was back where she had been sitting. "Piper Cheyanne North. That was the name on my birth certificate."

The air suddenly became thick with curiosity and apprehension as she continued to stare at the top of her sneakers. How had she _done_ that?! How was it possible that one word, used in the context of a simple phrase had triggered a memory that was lost to her until now?

Whatever had caused it, I knew by the looks on the faces of my family that they were thankful for it. I just wasn't entirely sure how _I_ felt about having caused this revelation. She was no longer nameless, known simply as 'the girl'. She had a name. It was just up to her now whether or not she stuck with that name or adopted the name of the family willing to take her in.

Just as I wondered about that, Esme glided into the room and lightly clapped her hands over the girl, Piper's arm. "Honey, I'm so glad we finally have a name to call you by!"

"You and me both." She sighed and glanced at me before quickly averting her eyes. The side look threw me a bit, but I tried to keep the facial registration unnoticable. This was about her, not me and the weird affects she was having on me.

"Are you going to stick with North?" Carlisle asked before his wife could, glancing around at our gathered family before focusing on her again. I just slumped into a nearby chair and cupped the side of my face with one hand. Almost as if I suddenly wanted to become invisible. And I did. Part of me didn't really want to know if she was going to adopt a new surname. Too bad her thoughts were stomping through my head like a merciless marching band.

_I already thought that was a given! But I shouldn't presume. Not like this family's always going to want me around. I know Edward doesn't...._

My head flew up at that thought, my face naked with surprise. Had I been that transparent? It stung to have this girl now standing almost directly beside me, thinking that I hated and wanted nothing to do with her. But wasn't that the case? At least partly. I hadn't wanted a single thing to do with her since Carlisle first walked into the house, thinking of her. She was too much temptation for me. And all in the ways that I was completely unfamiliar with. She awoke something in me that I had wanted to stay dead and buried. She made me think too much and to a vampire often described as _broody_ by his family, that was a dangerous place for me to be in. This girl, this Piper North was much too like the girl I had left behind.

"You wouldn't mind if I took on the Cullen last name?" She asked and I visibly shivered at the tone of her voice. How could such a smokey voice sound so innocent and child-like?

"Of course not!" Esme was nearly exploding with happiness, as evidence from her thoughts. I was trying desperately to block them out, but I'd never really been able to do that for my family. It was a skill I just could not master. "We would love it very much if you took on our last name, but that's up to you Piper. We won't make you stay with us if that's not what you want."

The chaos in my head was growing to be too much for me and without a glance at anyone in the room, I stood and launched toward the back of the house. I had to get out. I had to escape the barrage of thoughts and worries and insecurities. It was too much and I felt like my head was about to explode from it all. All because the girl had finally remembered her name. How had it all changed so instantly in just a few minutes?

I was aware of someone following me, but didn't stop as I took off toward a space between the trees. Distance was what I craved most, needed it as desperately as my body needed blood when I was deprived. But someone was following me. I could feel the low hum against my back as I pushed myself to the limit. I hadn't run like this in nearly three years and the exhileration of my feet lightly thumping against the forest floor was completely lost. All thanks to whoever was choosing to follow me.

Not thinking twice, I stopped suddenly and slid into a defensive crouch. The low snarl that ripped from my lips stopped my pursuer dead and I nearly fell over when I recognized the bloody eyes staring back at me. Piper had slipped into a crouch of her own, lean muscles rippling subtly underneath the fabric of her jeans. The light sweater she'd put on was no match for the bevey it was trying to conceal. Due to her position, I got an almost clear view down the front of her shirt.

She seemed to realize where my eyes had fallen and straightened up immediately. Her spiky halo of hair blew lightly in the breeze, not completely hardened with the products Alice had introduced her to in order to maintain the style. "I just came to see if you were okay."

I gave her a curt nod then pivoted easily on my heel. The one person I _hadn't_ wanted to follow me did. Now what was I going to do for relief from her thoughts? My eyebrows puckered when I suddenly realized that there _were_ no thoughts slamming into my mind. Whirling back around, I took a few steps toward her before it registered that I was moving. Stopping short, I just shrugged and shoved my hands into the pockets of my khakis. "I just had to get out of the house. It's...it got chaotic for me in there."

"Why?" She asked casually, her own hands disappearing into the pockets of her jeans as she closed some of the distance between us. Why was this happening? I liked the girl enough, I wished her no illwill or anything like that. But if I had to be honest with myself, she was not the woman I wanted standing in front of me. Her porcelain face struck me when a few streams of sunlight broke through the fringe of trees and set off her skin. Had she been told the reason we stayed out of direct sunlight around humans? Her skin was glowing brightly, casting reflections off her as her eyes tightened and her bow-like lips became invisible.

"I'm not sure you want to know." I answered gruffly and cursed myself for how my voice sounded. A deep pocket of my mind noted that I didn't really want this girl to know anything about me. After all, she wasn't who I wanted standing before me. I knew my family had hoped that she would become to me what I had denied in Forks. But she wasn't Bella. Plain and simple. I'd destroyed my first source of happiness in a long lifetime. A chance like that didn't come along twice. It just didn't happen. She wasn't my soulmate, my perfect other half. She wasn't my Bella. "I just need some privacy." My tone became a little more sharper as I pulled my hands from my pockets and prepared to start running again. "Tell the others I'll be back in a little while."

Her thoughts were suddenly a complete mystery to me, so I had no idea what she was thinking of me right then. But she just shrugged and slid one foot back behind her in preparation to turn back for the house. "I'm not your messenger, Edward, so don't get used to me relaying message."

Then, in the blink of a human eye, she was gone. _Who was this girl?!_

* * *

I eventually made my way back to the house. The sun had set long ago and my aimless meandering had slowly dried up as I regathered my senses and thoughts. I had responsibilities waiting for me at home. It was a school day tomorrow, the sun wouldn't be an issue. Which meant that I was required to show up for my list of classes. Appearances, no matter what was going on in my head, had to be kept. I was determined to keep my existance as it had been before the girl...I refused to call or think of her by name, showed up.

Rosalie and Emmett were waiting for me on the front porch when I returned home. And as usual, Rose was mad at me. I let a small chuckle flow past my lips as I slowed into a walk and vaulted up the stairs before they could get a chance to talk to me. Their collective process of thoughts was enough to give me insight to what they had been waiting to talk to me about.

_You're being an insensitve jerk, Edward_. Oh Rosalie, how I could count on her to resort to namecalling.

"Stay out of it, Rose." I growled over my shoulder, stopping on the wide deck to turn and face her. I was suddenly itching for a fight and, even though Emmett wouldn't allow me to go toe-to-toe with my blonde sister the way I wanted, I couldn't stop myself from at least trying.

"She has no one and you're being a prick to her. For no good reason! It's time you got over yourself and accept the fact that she could very well be joining our family."

If I don't drive her away first. That was added in silently, easily picked out of the angry blonde's head. Emmett echoed her sentiments. He liked the girl, she was a welcome change. They had the same sense of humor and he liked the fact that he had someone to relate to on that level. She fit in way too well for my liking.

"I have nothing to get over." I responded slowly through clenched teeth. For some reason, I was trying to keep my voice low. I didn't want a fight to erupt right here on the front porch. "But I do not have to accept her. I'll go out on my own. If she wants to stay, I won't try to change her mind."

"Why do you need to go?" Emmett finally spoke, his tone almost politely curious. Too bad I knew better. "Do you really think that's what everyone wants? What's so bad about having her in this family?"

"You wouldn't understand."

"Oh come _on_!" Rosalie exploded then, her words hitting my face like slaps across the skin as she closed the space between us. "You've been moping over _her_ long enough! You made your decision, Edward. She made hers. You wanted her to have a normal and happy life, well guess what?!" Her voice grew with every word she said and I had to fight to keep my muscles locked so that I wouldn't bodily try to shut her up. As tempting as it was, I really didn't want to get physical with Emmett for hurting Rosalie just because she happened to be speaking the truth. "She got what you wanted! None of us wanted to leave Forks. But we did, for you! She was _just a girl_!"

"Stop." Carlisle's voice of reason reached me just in time. I'd lost control over my muscles and was about to lunge at Rosalie when he lightly pulled me back toward him. Well, not lightly since I actually _moved_. It was very rare when Carlisle was angry but the expression on his face was enough to make me want to cower in shame and apology. "That's quite enough. Rosalie, go inside the house please. I need to speak with Edward alone."

"There's nothing to say." I admitted, suddenly so full of defeat that I couldn't bare to talk about anything anymore. Pulling my arm from my father's steely grasp, I just turned and darted into the house. I wasn't going to find any solace in my room tonight. Not with tensions as high as they were. But I tried, moving in vain as I slammed my bedroom door closed and punched my stereo on. If I wasn't careful, I was going to break something very valuable. _Then_ I would be pissed off.


	7. Chapter 7

_**AUTHOR'S NOTE:**__ Yet another new chapter! Now that I've been able to sit down and write, it's all just flowing easily. Hope you guys are enjoying how this story is progressing. I promise, it's going to get very interesting soon! Thanks so very much for all the reviews, I love and appreciate them all! They keep me writing._

_Stephenie Meyer's the genius, I'm just playing in her sandbox._

* * *

**CHAPTER SEVEN:**

For the first time in a very long, long time; I did not want to leave school. The insolent buzz of thoughts around me was a welcome distraction from awaited me at home. Emmett and Rosalie were probably already home, spending time with the newest addition since she was in no shape to be around humans yet. She still had quite a way to go before _that_ happened.

But I found myself leaving the large building anyway, ignoring the stares as I moved through the parking lot on autopilot. The keys in my hand felt like a large boulder as I unlocked my car door and slid in behind the steering wheel. I had parted with the Volvo a long time ago, unable to completely eradicate the traces Bella had left behind. It hurt to have such a large reminder of lost love surrounding me. The car that had replaced it was nothing like the inconspicous vehicle I'd chosen for taking my family to and from school. This time, the automobile was a glossy brand-new Ford Mustang. I'd wanted no reminders of my former car when selecting the new one, minus the color. And Hanover was a little more upscale than Forks had been. I was able to have a slightly more extravagant car here, but only marginally. My Aston Martin was still deeply cloaked in the large garage behind my house. I was sure we would never find a suitable home where I could drive that on a daily basis.

I didn't pay attention to speed limits as I drove home, Alice silent in the passenger seat with Jasper focused soley on her from the back. Neither seemed to want to say something and risk having me explode all over them. I was too keyed up. Something had to give before I mangled the close bonds of my family beyond repair.

"I'm sorry." I finally muttered, about half a mile from home.

Alice didn't look surprised enough as she turned her head to look at me, glancing back at Jasper before she focused on me. "Why're you apologizing?"

"Because maybe Rose is right." I sighed and carefully punched the heel of my hand against the steering wheel in frustration. "I think I am being a jerk to the gir...to Piper. I don't mean to."

"But it's something you can't control." Alice supplied for me then sighed as she shook her head. "You really need to stop being so hard on yourself, Edward. We all know the great sacrifice it took to walk away from Bella. But you can't keep making yourself unhappy as a result. What's done cannot be undone. Piper's going to stay with us for now. But she honestly thinks you hate her and can't figure out what she's done to deserve it."

"I don't hate her." I snapped suddenly. And deep down, I didn't. I just hated the memories she ignited. "I just hate what she unconsciously represents." That added with the hopes of my family made the girl's appearance now unbearable.

I suddenly heard laughter and looked over quickly to find Alice doubled over in her seat. "What's so funny?!" I demanded, having no idea how we could have gone from picking words carefully to nearly howling in laughter. What had I missed?

"You..." She sighed and slowly regained her composure, pushing stray hairs off her forehead as she sat back up in the seat. "You did the exact same thing with Bella, you do know that right?"

A random burst of pain flooded through me, causing me to wince as I pulled into the entrance of our house. "Not exactly helping, Alice."

* * *

I was actually doing homework when I saw Piper again. Since Alice's revelation, I'd been trying to prove her wrong. It wasn't an easy thing to accomplish, but I had to at least try. There was some seed of truth to what she'd said in the car. I _had_ treated Bella the exact same way. But it was a different set of circumstances. I'd been trying to prevent Bella's death, trying to ignore the overpowering scent of her blood. That was why I'd taken such extreme steps to stay away from her. In the end, I'd lost. Yet another thing I could add to the list of connecting thoughts.

I heard more music floating down the hallway as I pushed aside the book I'd just been trying to study. Not that I'd really needed to. I could now do any high school homework with my eyes closed. It was all too repetitive by now. But I'd needed the distraction.

The song flowing from Piper's room was yet another unfamiliar tune, but upbeat and jazzy. Something I wouldn't be able to get out of my head at a later date. Getting up to investigate, I was met by a scene that was very similar to the first time I'd seen her room.

Piper was dancing around in flannel pajama pants and a matching top, her hair messy and haphazard around her head. Her eyes were closed with lips mouthing the words. Something about a taxi cab, that was all I could process as I continued to watch her dance around to the melody. Whoever this man was, he had become a favorite to Piper. I recognized his voice and remembered that she'd been listening to him the last time as well.

Her thoughts conveyed that she knew I was watching, but that wasn't enough to break her of the melodic trance. So I stepped just inside the room, unconsciously biting down on my lower lip as I folded my arms across the front of the beige sweater I'd pulled on for school.

"It's not nice to watch." She said, once the song had ended. She switched off the silver iPod that Alice had bought her and slowly pivoted around to face me. It was then that I realized just how graceful her movements were, even without the vampiric enhancements.

"Sorry." I responded, not sounding the least apologetic in being caught. "How long have you been dancing?"

That question brought us both up short. Me because I couldn't believe I was asking and Piper because she was trying to think of the answer to my question. "I...honestly can't remember. I think I've always danced or done some form of sport."

I nodded and was at a loss for how to further the conversation. How could I possibly go from avoiding her like the plague to inviting her into some part of my life? It was a difficult switch to make but yet, here I was. Standing in her bedroom like some sort of peeping tom, trying to figure her out.

"What about you?" She asked suddenly and looked just as uncomfortable as I did. "Are you interested in any sports?"

The question tumbled around in my mind as I looked at the wall to my left. It was completely bare and void of a humanistic touch. She didn't have any memories to fill the walls with, that realization hit me suddenly and painfully. I shrugged one shoulder up toward my shoulder and looked back at her with a small smile pulling the corner of my mouth up. "Baseball." I answered impulsively, my mind replaying the last game my family had come together for. That had been Bella's first foray into the true side of my family's life. The game had ended in the worst possible way, but I refused to let my thoughts stray much further than that. "We play when a big storm's brewing."

"Really?" For the first time since I'd met her, Piper looked genuinely interested as she shoved her tiny hands into the pockets on her flannel pants. The action caused the waistband to slide down her hips a milimeter and I was hit yet again with another unadulerated wave of lust. The monster that lurked behind my eyes yearned for the monster behind _her_ eyes. "Do you think that's...something I might be able to be apart of?"

I thought about her innocent question for a brief second and found myself nodding. I was actually thankful for her words, it pushed the wave of lust deep into a small pocket of my mind and let me regain my composure. "I think so, yes. After all, you're apart of this family. Baseball's a family activity with the Cullens."

"What else do you do as a family?" The questions were just flowing now. Piper hadn't moved since she stopped dancing, but I felt the strange itch to sit or move in some way. Anything to keep my mind busy on a miniscule task.

After casting a cautious glance at the girl, who nodded at a nearby rocking chair set up in the corner between the glass wall and the wall connecting to the door; I eased into it and sighed as I relaxed minutely. "We do a few things. Sometimes we hunt together, but mostly it's just baseball that brings us together. When you've been around someone as long as we have, you've already set up a list of things you either like to do on your own, or with another member of the family."

"Is it normal?" She asked suddenly, angling her lean body to face me as she turned and curled up on the edge of her bed. It just so happened, she chose the section of mattress that was closest to me. "For a family as big as yours to be together so long?"

"Not always." I sighed and frowned as I tried to figure out how, exactly, to explain things. I wasn't entirely sure how we'd broached this subject but I wasn't entirely against it. After all, this was probably something she would need to know about at a later date. Why not just go ahead and get something else out of the way now? Piper was already involved in a crash course of vampirism. "Because we obstain from taking human blood, we're able to form more tight-knit bonds of love. There are others out there, like us who don't feed on animals, but they sometimes only form tangible bonds. Mostly that's for convience. There is only one other family that's as large as ours, but their bonds are completely different from ours."

"How are they different?"

My eyes shifted away from hers as I thought about the vampire family I'd just mentioned. They couldn't really be called a family, if a person wanted to get right down to it. But this girl needed to know about them. "They're called the Volturi. Three brothers make up the head of this family, providing they can be called that. But really it's just a large coven held together by talents and various forms of convience. They're like royalty among our kind. They make sure our laws are kept and maintained. This coven reside in Volterra, Italy and very rarely leave their city. Anything they need is brought to them. It's a rare occasion when the brothers and their wives leave."

Piper nodded slowly as she took in everything I'd just told her. Her thoughts were a snarl of different avenues, all claiming her immediate attention. It surprised me when she picked the one strain of thought that I hadn't been expecting. "You said wives...is it true that vampires mate for eternity?"

I had to smile a little at the way she phrased the question. It was almost as if she still couldn't consider herself a part of this world. Like she wasn't a vampire herself. "Yes, it is. The couples within my -- our family will be together until eternity ends. I'm not entirely sure how that happens, unless someone comes along and tears us apart and burns us."

"Wait, what do you mean by tearing apart and burning?"

I winced when the subject shifted to a darker topic. "If our bodies are actually torn apart, dismembered then burned...there's no coming back from that. If we were simply dismembered, we could eventually reconnect but there are lasting reprocussions."

Again, I found the girl nodding at me as she bit down on her impenitable lower lip. "I'm sorry if I'm asking a lot of questions." She announced suddenly, looking at me like a child about to be scolded.

I found myself smiling again, shaking my head as I stood and walked over to her place on the bed. It surprised me to be moving toward her, the shock growing even more when I laid a hand on top of hers. "It's okay. You'll need to know all of these things, Piper. But there's a lot that Carlisle can explain more accurately."

She blinked at me suddenly and her thoughts abruptly went blank. But she didn't recoil from my touch. "You actually called me by name."

"I did." I admitted with quiet wonder. Maybe actually being nice to her wouldn't be such a difficult task to master, after all.


	8. Chapter 8

_AUTHOR'S NOTE: Another day, two new chapters. Figured I had some time to make up for. Anyway, enjoy!_

_Stephenie Meyer's the genius, I'm just playing in her sandbox._

* * *

**CHAPTER EIGHT:**

They say that just when things are going perfectly, where you're able to tread water -- that's when the water gets too high and the shore momentarily disappears from view.

I had a strange sense of belief in this statement just three days after my first real conversation with Piper. She was seated on the bumper of Emmett's Jeep when I drove in from school, her face a tight mixture of anger and disbelief. Exhaling slowly, even though this offered me no relief, I killed the engine of my car and dutifully stepped out.

Piper wasted no time in joining me, anger winning out as the dominant emotion on her face. "Is it true?"

"Is what true?" I asked dumbly, unable to help myself. She'd caught me so completely offguard that I couldn't make sense of her question. The bundle of thoughts in her mind was just a convoluted ball. Nothing made sense and she wasn't giving me any hints as to where this conversation might possibly lead.

"You know what." She replied hotly, her tiny hands curled into tight fists against the thighs of her artfully faded jeans. "Can you read minds or not?"

Oh, crap. We were going to have _this_ conversation. Now. In the garage no less. I probably paused longer than I needed to, taking in every single line of her expression before I began to nod slowly. "Yes, it's true. Alice can see the future and Jasper can feel and manipulate emotions in a room." Oh, how I suddenly wished my fair-haired brother was with us right then. It was probably wrong to throw them under the buss like I just had, but it was the best defence I could offer up right then.

Everything changed so fast that I was once again powerless to keep up. The expressions on her perfect, icy face changed so quickly but they all stayed within the same realm of each other. She was pissed off. Dangerously pissed off. "Why didn't you tell me?!" Her voice exploded in power then and we both jumped at the impact. Her thoughts abruptly snapped there and I was peering into a mind that I just could not figure out how to intrude on. She was doing something to keep me out, the look on her face proving that. But the thing I wasn't sure of was whether or not she was actively aware of her own power. "Have you been snooping around in my head? Is that why you suddenly remember that I exist?"

"What?" I blurted out and stared at her as if she were growing two heads right in front of me. Granted, her thoughts had given her away. But so had the conversation she'd supposedly had with Alice. Alice couldn't keep anything to herself if it promoted harmony within her own family. "I don't _snoop _through your head, Piper! I can't help it if your thoughts happen to scream at me every time I'm around you."

"Oh that's a load of crap and you know it!" That simple statement proved that she wasn't going to give me a chance to explain how my weird quirk functioned. "I don't want you in my head, Edward. I don't want you knowing _anything_ unless I tell you first! Do you really think I'd be okay with you gaining stuff to hold over my head at some later date? I didn't like it when Jason...."

The conversation and atmosphere abruptly changed when she used an unfamiliar name. I had no idea who this Jason was, but the flash of pain through her eyes told me that this person had hurt her deeply. So deeply that, maybe, it had led to where she now stood. A vampire angry at another vampire.

Before I could clearly sort out that thought, I was seized with another. Piper had abruptly turned and began to stalk toward the house. Her thoughts were still cut off from me, but I didn't need them. I began to follow helplessly, completely unsure of what I was going to say or do next. The only thing that _was_ clear to me? I had to calm this girl down and fast. She was, after all, still very raw.

"Piper!" I yelled suddenly, easily catching up with her before I grabbed her arm.

That was yet another thing I could add to the list of "Do not do". In the blink of an eye, her hands gripped my shoulder and I was suddenly flying forward. Over her body and onto the grass below. Landing on my back with a thud that could rival most rock slides, I just coughed out air then looked up at her with wide eyes. Whatever had been keeping me out of her head suddenly disappeared in her surprise and I scrambled to get some sort of read on her mental state. But it was no use. The only thing I could clearly feel right then was the electricity shooting from her body and into mine. We were still physically connected, even though she had flipped me over her shoulder to land on my back. The hand I'd grabbed her with was crushed up against her chest, her hands curled into talons around my larger wrist. If she hadn't been a newborn, there was no way that this would've been accomplishable. But as it stood, she would have the ability to kick anyone's ass. At least for a year until her blood was totally diluted with the animal blood diet.

"Stay out of my head." She growled, looking more like a vampire than I'd ever seen her look. Her foot, which had been shoved against my throat, relaxed before she stepped over me and continued on into the house.

All I could do was just lay there, staring up at the darkening sky as my thoughts ran into swirls between my ears. It wasn't that I was surprised she had managed to knock me off my feet. That part I understood perfectly. The instinct to protect one's self had won out and I was being careless. I'd pushed her too far, simply by trying to follow her into the house. But I had to know who Jason was. The mysterious man, which was obvious given the namesake, gripped me with such biased curiosity that I had a hard time fighting it back. If I'd been in my right mind, doing what I'd originally set out to when Piper joined us, none of this would have happened.

From where I was laying, I could still hear the voices inside. A heated arguement was sparked almost seconds after the volatile newborn walked back in. I could feel the tenor of Jasper's mind as he tried to defuse the situation, but it was no use. Alice had tried to calm her down, only to be met with an arguement of her own. I sighed and fell back onto the grass, letting the mental and verbal uproar engulf me.

_"Piper, we were going to tell you! But there's never an easy way to tell someone these things. Especially when they're a newborn."_ Esme, always trying to be the peacemaker.

_"Please don't play the newborn card! I'm not as damaged as you may think. I could've handled it! But no, you chose to keep all this from me. Don't you realize how that makes me feel? I'm basically an ass because everyone knows what's going on with me. Without my permission!"_ Her thoughts were still accessable and I saw the change she was about to unload on Alice. Lurching to my feet, I raced inside. Alice, Jasper, and Esme were already in the living room; the others were trickling down from various other parts of the house. Minus Carlisle, who was still at the hospital.

Skidding to a halt, I just hung back and watched silently as Piper stared at Alice with the same fury I'd seen in her eyes when she confronted me.

"Did you see me becoming a vampire, Alice?"

"At first?" Alice blinked, her eyes turning glassy as she consulted the visions she'd already seen and stored away for moments like this. "No. But I did eventually see it."

"Why wasn't I given a choice?" Piper, were her body still able, would have been on the verge of tears as she faced off with the one member of our family she thought she was closest to. "You said that at first, you didn't see this for me. What changed so drastically that _my choice_ was taken away?"

"Because you were dying." Everyone turned to look at me then and I realized, belatedly, that I'd been the one to answer her question.

She whirled on me so fast that her movements would have been a blur to some mere human. Thankfully I was as far from that classification as possible. "What do you mean, I was dying?"

I sighed again, lifting my eyes to the ceiling before stared at her again. I didn't flinch or move a muscle, simply locking down as our eyes caught and held. "You can tell when I'm lying to you, so pay attention. You were left outside the ER doors to die when Carlisle found you. Your condition didn't improve the slightest bit during your hospital stay and you ended up here. No one in this house could bare to lose you, so the same thing happened to you that happened to all of us. None of us were given a choice."

Her eyes glazed over at my words, the shield holding me out of her head thick and impenetrable as she processed my words. I was a little relieved she didn't call me out instantly for lying. Which I hadn't been. I hadn't been lying when I said that no one in this house wanted to lose her, I just wasn't entirely sure if I'd added myself into that. Part of me wished I had, but there was the smaller part that still refused to acknowledge any less-than-hostile feelings I harbored for the girl.

Her throat constricted as she swallowed thickly then dropped my gaze. She always seemed to look down at her feet whenever she was fearful or nervous. Her hair wasn't long enough to obscure her face, so I could stand there and watch as the shock registered on her face, followed closely by anger before settling on pain. That was when she chose to look at me, her crimson eyes looking starkly out of place against her smooth, alabaster skin. "Why did you have to intervene?"

As Piper turned and streaked up the stairs, I felt the strangest feeling forming in the pit of my stomach. The only thing I could liken it to was from when I'd left Bella alone in the darkening forest outside of her house. The single most painful day of my existance. An emotional swell of grief so strong that I still hadn't completely been able to rise back to the surface. But yet, I was feeling something strikingly close beginning to build up right beside the hole Bella had once occupied.

No one made an immediate move to follow Piper upstairs, her bedroom door slamming closed maybe about half a second after her foot hit that first stair. No one seemed to know what to do. How could we find the words to go up there and console a girl so consumed with grief? And it wasn't a simple kind of grief. I wasn't entirely sure, but I doubted this grief had a foundation. There was no face to this invisible ball of pain she was having to face. None of us had an idea what she had gone through, but maybe she'd been right.

After all, who were we to impose our way of life on a girl we knew nothing about?

* * *

For the rest of the night, Piper stayed locked up in her room. Alice and Esme both tried at least twice to coax her into talking, but both women had been brutally rebuffed. No one seemed to know what to say or do next.

I was the only one not walking around on eggshells because of our newest family member. I'd gone about my normal routine after the angry confrontation, but found no solace in my beloved piano. It had been tucked into a back corner of the spacious living area, perfectly preserved and out of the way from any other activity that might take place on the first floor.

To be honest, I couldn't remember the last time I'd thoroughly enjoyed playing the piano. It had probably been around the last time I composed an original piece of music, a rising and crashing flow of notes that centered around the beginning of my relationship with Bella. I hadn't played that since the night we left Forks. For a while, it was just too difficult to be anywhere _near_ the piano and have memories flood back to me. It had been near this very piano that my decision to leave Bella had been made. Her disasterous eighteenth birthday. Thoughts of that night carried me up to my room, presumably to do homework. But I knew that if I were thinking of _her_, I would get nothing done.

So lost in my thoughts, I didn't even notice when Jasper slowly entered my bedroom. The door down the hall was still locked tightly and undoubtedly would be for the rest of the night. I sighed and shook my head slightly before casting a wan smile at my newest brother. "Speak of the devil...."

"And he shall appear." My brother finished with a small laugh and settled onto the other side of the wide sofa. "Were you thinking about that night again?"

Even though Jasper's gift dealt with emotions, there was no putting anything past him. He could feel every single thing bouncing around within me so it had only been a matter of time before he came to investigate. Though, with everything that had happened earlier in the day, I knew I wasn't the only one making the house unbearable for him. "Yeah." I admitted with a quiet sigh, casting a sheepish glance at him before I settled back into my previous position. The book in my lap lay abandoned, with no thought of returning to it any time soon.

Every since the night of Bella's birthday, no one in the family had dared speak of it again. Too much had happened, control had almost been lost, and I knew that Jasper still sometimes beat himself up for his place in it all. But really, no one could have predicted the outcome of Alice throwing Bella a party at our house in Forks. It was supposed to be a night that she would always look back on fondly, filled with the people she loved and loved her in return. But a human in a house full of vampires was never a good idea. Especially vampires that denied their very nature and almost drained her because of a tiny papercut. She'd been trying to open the present I'd given her when it happened and it took all of us to subdue Jasper enough to get him out of the house and away from the scent of blood. I hadn't helped matters any by knocking her over a table lined with her birthday cake and crystal plates. She'd ended up falling on them, resulting in a large gash up the underside of one arm.

If anything, I was the one at fault that night. First for even letting her step foot into my world so many months before that, and second for throwing her across the table to keep her from Jasper's treacherous grasp.

"I really am sorry for that night." He spoke quietly, gently breaking me from my little reviere.

I snapped back into focus with a small shake of my head. "You have nothing to apologize for, Jazz. I should have never let her get as involved in our world as I did. I always knew that something would happen to her. Something she wouldn't be able to walk away from. Accidents always kept happening, almost from the first moment she walked into that classroom. But I kept on. I kept letting myself believe I could protect her from it all." I couldn't even hold her hand when Carlisle stitched her up that night. How deluded had I been in thinking that my world was safe for someone as soft and vulnerable as Bella Swan?

We sat in silence after that statement for a while, neither of us seeming to know what to say. But slowly, Jasper's thoughts began to speak for him. Words were much easier to form in the privacy of your own mind, than forcing your lips to bring them to sound.

_I never thought you'd hurt her. Not once she'd changed you the way she did. I take responsibility for my part in her birthday party. If I'd been stronger...._

"Stop." I blurted out suddenly, hating how rough my voice sounded as it hit the air between us. I hated that he was shouldering so much blame. I wasn't the only one that hadn't let myself off the hook for Bella's removal from our lives. Shaking my head, I let my temple rest against my raised hand then turned to look at him clearly. "You've always done the best you can, Jazz. No one can ask more of you than that. Especially around someone as tempting as Bella was."

"I still don't see how you were able to stand it." He revealed with a small shake of his head, sighing to put emphasis on his words.

"I couldn't." I sighed then too, frowning as I remembered the first dangerous position I'd put her in because of my existance. If she'd never met me, never been in a clearing full of vampires playing baseball; a tracker by the name of James would have never found her. He wouldn't have very nearly killed her in Phoenix, thus driving me to try and save her once she'd been bitten. The venom had already started working it's way through her system when I got that first, fateful taste....

No matter how I tried to get around it, the evidence that I'd done the right thing was staring me in the face. Refusing to back down.


	9. Chapter 9

_Stephenie Meyer's the genius, I'm just playing in her sandbox. I own nothing but Piper._

* * *

**CHAPTER NINE:**

Weekends were always a boring affair in the Cullen household. No one had school, Carlisle almost always had at least one day off, and everyone just did what they had during the nighttime hours of the week.

The air felt surprisingly dry as I sat out on the front porch. I could hear Piper milling around in the house and wanted to give her some space. She'd finally come out of her room about twenty-four hours after the confrontation and since then, had refused to meet my eyes. I didn't want to think about how badly that stung.

But she had some things to work through. It was obvious that she'd remembered something that day, so it was just unspoken that we would leave her to do research in her own time. Her own way.

I heard footsteps on the porch which caused my back to stiffen minutely. I knew those footsteps. I'd spent the past two weeks listening to them, almost _honing_ in on them. Just so I knew where she was so that I could stay away from her.

Piper was dressed in a short jean skirt and flowy, long-sleeved top. Her feet were covered by cowboy boots with her messy hair perfectly disarrayed. She looked apprehensive about something and, of course, her thoughts were a complete mystery to me. She must've been told about the special block she could enforce to keep me out of her mind.

"Hi." She said almost shyly and stepped down to join me on the porch.

"Hey back." I murmered, internally kicking myself for how low my voice was. With her so close, I could smell the deliciously vampiric smell coming off her. It was the same scent we all had, but somehow, coming from her; it smelled so much sweeter. "Have you forgiven me yet?"

"I never needed to." She shrugged her shoulders slowly and laid her arms over her knees, hands lightly grazzing the top of her calves as she continued to watch my every move. "You didn't do anything wrong, I was the one that overreacted. So...I guess that means I should be the one apologizing."

"Nothing to apologize for." I shook my head slightly and forced my head to turn back toward the grassy clearing in front of the house. It was much too tempting to stare at her, to let my eyes _really_ take in all the tiny details of her face and body. It was something I'd been wanting to do from the moment she'd woken up. I never would have thought it would be so difficult to keep myself from staring at another woman after Bella.

"Okay." I could see her nod out of the corner of my eyes, her gaze also flickering out to the clearing as she drew in an unnecessary breath then let it out slowly. "It's just...tough, not knowing who you were or what you've left behind."

"I can relate." I responded sympathetically. My body betrayed me and I was soon looking at her again, my chin resting lightly on my arm. "We all can, Piper. Some vampires never regain memories from their human life. I can't speak for everyone, but for myself? The thing I remember most clearly is my own transformation. Most of the time I get little flickers of my human life, but that's just through Carlisle."

"Because he was the one who changed you." She supplied, her eyes not straying from mine as her own chin dropped onto her shoulder. It was almost comical in a way, how we were sitting in the exact same stance. "Did you leave anyone behind?"

"No." I sighed and finally broke the trance that had begun to surround us. Clearly my throat roughly, I glanced down at my own white shirt and idly pulled the line of buttons from my chest before letting them drop against my upper body. Anything to keep myself busy and from staring at her. "My parents had already died by the time Carlisle changed me."

"Can I ask...when he changed you?" She sounded so innocent whenever she asked one of us a question. No matter who it was directed at, or what the question actually pertained to, there was an innocence and almost uncertainty that always revealed itself.

I pushed that away momentarily and focused on her question, saving my own reflections for a later date. The waters weren't completely smooth yet and I suddenly didn't want to risk us getting into another fight. "I was seventeen, almost eighteen when Carlisle changed me in 1918. He was working in a Chicago hospital when he found me dying of the Spanish Influenza."

"Wow." She whispered and her eyes dropped to her boots. The wind caught her hair right then, blowing stray tendrils across her temple and the top part of her forehead. A sudden desire to push away those fallen locks hit me then, so suddenly that I would have gasped if I weren't in better control of myself.

"Yeah." I nodded and squinted out into the yard when a few rays of sunshine tried to sneak past the clouds. "Can I ask you something?"

Piper looked up at me in shock then slowly nodded, once again biting down on her full bottom lip. "Only fair since I've asked you so many."

"I'm not keeping score." I reminded her gently, a small smile even playing on my lips as I gently nudged her shoulder with mine then straightened back up. "Why do you always sound so uncertain when you ask one of us something? There's no such thing as bad questions in this family."

Her teeth constricted on her lip as she looked away sharply. All I could see of her now was the defined outline of her throat as it curved into her shoulder, then underneath the bright top that Esme had presumably picked out for her. "I...can't really answer that. I just get this feeling, whenever I ask something. I'm not sure if I should or not and I guess that makes me sound uncertain."

That sounded fair enough, my brain already working frantically to link pieces together. I couldn't imagine how difficult it was for this girl to not remember anything about her past life. For the first three days of her new existance, she hadn't even had a name. Looking back out into the yard again, I smiled suddenly and lurched to my feet. "Okay, enough moping around. What do you say to experiencing something new?"

"Define new." Her voice deadpanned, eyes squinting up at me as she tried to figure out what I was up to. The mental block was down, for now at least. And I was strangely determined to keep it that way. At least for one day. I somehow wanted to prove to her that she could trust the privacy of her own mind around me. That I wouldn't turn and use her thoughts against her when she least expected it.

"You deserve some fun." I sighed and unconsciously held my hand out for her to take. "The only time you leave this house is when you go hunt and I can only imagine how bad your cabin fever's getting. I'm just suggesting a simple run through the forest. You can stretch your legs, use some of that unwavering strength to try and beat me."

"You're on." The grin brightened her face considerably as she grabbed my hand and vaulted to her feet. She clearly had a competitive side, a good thing considering the family surrounding her. She was quick to drop my hand though, smoothing her skirt out against her legs as she prepared to take off. "Esme has told me you're the fastest runner in the family."

"What do you say we put that to the test?" I grinned wickedly then, even winking at her before I shot off into a spacious clearing between two groups of trees. I knew this girl would not disappoint and soon enough, I was fighting to keep up with her through the thick New Hampshire growth.

* * *

"How far did we run?" Piper asked once we'd stopped. She didn't sound the least bit winded. If anything, she sounded exhilerated. Her breath was coming out in short pants, but I just assumed she was still holding on to some human characteristics. Those were the toughest to get rid of at first. If at all, which I was learning first-hand.

"Pretty far." I laughed out, keeping my hands on my hips as I paced away from her slightly. All to keep up the pretense of needing to fidget. Her thoughts were still open and I had to smile when I picked out a stray thought.

She could see right through me.

"Why do you do that?" She asked curiously, tilting her head slightly as she put her own hands on her hips, even cocking one leg to the side as she shifted her weight.

"Do what?" I asked, doing my best to sound surprised so she didn't automatically assume I was snooping around in her mind. After all, she'd asked me not to. In a round-about sort of way.

"You know what." She shot back and gave me a very pointed look. Ah, I'd forgotten about her ability to tell when someone was lying to her.

"I'm just trying to give you your privacy." I amended and held my hands up slightly in a joking, surrendering way. "You want me to stay out of your head, Piper. I can't promise I'll fully be able to without your defense up. But I will do the best I absolutely can."

"Thank you." She sounded shocked as she nodded, glancing at the earth floor beneath our feet then back up at me. I could tell our height differances very clearly now and found myself wondering what it would be like to have her in my arms. Not in any kind of lustful or animalistic gesture. Just to feel her body against mine, her tiny arms wound around my waist like she wanted me to hold her and not let go.

"You're welcome." I frowned suddenly and looked away, having to really work at getting my thoughts reorganized. It was too easy to get distracted by her, and there were no barriers in place with her. I didn't have to be careful with this girl physically. She'd proven very well that she could take care of herself where I was concerned. Nonetheless, I was determined to maintain some distance between us. "And to answer your question, it's like second nature to me. I'm so used to acting human that I just...can't help it sometimes."

"Esme was telling me that you all go to school and everything." Even though Piper was asking me a question, I knew she was thinking about something else entirely. Something that dealt with the look that had just been on my face. "Doesn't that ever get repetitive?"

I nodded and turned to sit on a recently fallen tree trunk. It created an almost perfect bench, albeit I was still at a slight angle to the ground. But it didn't really bother me as I flattened my hands on the bark beside my legs and looked up as she walked a little closer, now hugging her arms across her abdomen as she moved. "It does, but it helps us maintain a human facade. If we truly act like a human family, then there won't be any suspicion."

She snorted back a laugh so suddenly that I jumped and nearly fell backward off the branch. That caused her to snicker a little more. I just rolled my eyes jokingly but overestimated my position. I had sat too close to the back edge and before I knew it, I was on my ass with my legs still thrown over the trunk. That sent her into throaty peals of laughter then, nearly doubling over as her body only went through the motions of protesting air.

"Think that's funny, huh?" I asked once I'd righted myself and raised an eyebrow at her.

"_So_ funny." She blurted out between giggles and even nodded, now hugging her stomach noticably as she tried to get herself back under control. "I didn't know a century-old vampire could lose his balance."

"I can think of something funnier." I murmured thoughtfully, which threw her off enough that I was able to get up and snatch her by the waist. She squealed in my ears as her feet left the floor and both of us were soon spinning in the damp little clearing we'd stumbled across.

"Stop!" She was still laughing, her legs curled slightly toward her chest with her back securely against me as I continued to spin. My feet slowed so I wouldn't lose traction and send us both spiraling in random directions. My fatal mistake came when I set her down enough to start tickling her sides.

Piper balked in alarm, a loud scream echoing off the trees as she spun away from me and dipped once again into a predatory crouch. Her expression was livid with anger, but I could see the deep pools of pain in her eyes.

"I'm sorry!" I stated quickly and even held my hands up in front of me as I took a couple of measured steps back. I'd just triggered a button, having not even known it existed, but it had been unintentional. Whatever had been in this girl's past was darker than I'd originally thought it could ever be. Then, before I was even aware of what was happening; a new and sudden question expelled past my lips. "What did he _do_ to you?"


	10. Chapter 10

_**AUTHOR'S NOTE:** Another chapter! I apologize now in advance if this doesn't make any sense. Writing while sick isn't one of the best ideas I've ever had. Anyway, enjoy!_

_Stephenie Meyer's the genius, I'm just playing in her sandbox._

* * *

**CHAPTER TEN:**

For once, the house was entirely silent. It was a school day, with Carlisle pulling an afternoon shift at the hospital since the weather was nice and dreary. I'd left the house long enough to take Alice to school, figuring it would do me some good to attend classes in hopes of distracting myself. But as soon as I pulled up in front of the establishment and looked at the throngs of students, this was absolutely the _last_ place I'd wanted to be. It didn't really sit well with me to be there while Piper was, essentially home alone. Even Esme had things scheduled for the day.

In spite of that determination to keep Piper company, I found myself shut up in my bedroom nonetheless. She hadn't emerged once from her room since we'd gotten back from the woods. When I had inadvertantly shown my hand. The already-rocky ground in which our relationship stood had been shaken even more when the newest Cullen vampire realized I seemed to know more about her past than she did.

Yet she had refused to enlist anyone's help in finding out about the world she'd left behind. I couldn't be sure, but it almost felt like there was a part of her that didn't want to know. Not that I could entirely blame her, but what good did hiding from the truth bring?

It didn't and as Piper's solitary confinement lengthened, my unfounded fears were confirmed. She would have to face everything sooner or later. Providing she'd connected the pieces as I had.

Giving up on the book I'd been trying to read for the past twenty minutes, I ventured downstairs for something else to do. My thoughts flickered to various activities I could utilize to occupy my time, but none of them held any appeal. There seemed to be nothing in the house that could distract me from the thoughts centering around one particular person. Or rather, two people. The newborn vampire stirring around the house and the healthy human that was living her happily ever after out in La Push, Washington.

As soon as I reached the living room, I was surprised to find Piper already camped out on the couch. Her hair lay perfectly flat against her skull with tiny wet strands clinging to her temples and neck. Once I'd come into the room, she seemed to transform from a living statue to a normal girl watching television. I knew better.

"Hey." She blurted out abruptly, her bright eyes taking in every single twitch of my muscles. "I...can disappear if you want the TV."

"You're fine where you are." I mumbled and ambled over to the couch. Not thinking clearly, I plopped down beside her and stretched my legs out in front of me, crossing them at the ankles. "I didn't know you were down here."

Piper just nodded and looked back at the television again. Even though she had relaxed somewhat once I'd entered the room, it was only marginal. I could still see the lines of tension in her rounded jaw. The lines around her eyes and corners of her lips were also stressed slightly, like she was trying to ignore the fact I was sitting so close to her.

Abruptly tired of all the apprehension and tension between us, I leaned forward long enough to switch the flat-screen off and bodily turned around to face her. "Okay, enough skirting around. I think we should talk."

"About what?" She sighed then, only tilting her head to look up at me clearly. She didn't want a lengthy conversation anymore than I did, but I was tired of feeling like I had to skulk around my own house, just so I didn't run the risk of bumping into her and making things difficult for her. After all, the less-sensible part of my mind roared that this place had been my home first.

"Whatever you feel I should know." I shrugged and waved in front of me slightly with one hand. "I meant what I said when I told you that I would try and give you as much mental privacy as possible. But I don't want to burden the others with some weird sense of tension."

"I don't feel any tension." Piper looked completely at ease as she spoke. Her body language, something I'd had centuries of practice in reading, gave her away. "Maybe it's all coming from you. You're the only one that seems against having me here. Can I ask why?"

How did I answer that? How could I possibly formulate the right phrase of sentences that wouldn't insult this girl into an even further sense of seclusion? This was the one question I'd been hoping would never be asked. But yet, here it was. Her four, simple words marching through my brain mercilessly, demanding an actual answer. No half-truths would suffice. "This isn't the life I would've chosen for myself." I started out honestly. She'd asked, after all. I just hoped she would accept my answer as optimistically as possible. I strangely didn't want her feelings hurt by the way I saw our world. "So by association, this isn't the life I would have chosen for you. Change doesn't come along very often in our world, so when it does; it's a very difficult thing to get used to."

"So..." Trailing off, she bit down on her lower lip lightly and nodded slowly. "You have to get used to me? Is that what you're trying to say?"

"In a round-about sort of way, yes."

It surprised me when she suddenly snorted back a laugh and vaulted off the couch. She was still wearing her pajamas, though I could tell the pink and grey plaid pajama pants and gray tank top were more for comfort than the actual purpose they served. And she didn't really have anything that required getting dressed for. She couldn't leave the house, not as raw and new to this life as she was. "I'm sorry but I don't believe that for one second."

"Why not?" I shot to my feet in the blink of an eye, my eyes wide and zeroing in on her every movement. "Why is it so hard to believe that I simply have to get used to your presence?"

"Because it goes beyond that." Piper sighed then, again, and slowly turned on her bare heel to face me. Her arms curled unconsciously across her chest, pushing her breasts up enough to create a little more cleavage than she normally had. It was difficult to look away, but I had to. This girl didn't deserve to be oogled by someone that, for all intents and purposes, didn't really want her around. But as the days passed, I found that to be even less of an issue as the day before. "There's...I can't explain it properly." She frowned so suddenly that I was momentarily thrown off-balance. How did this girl know so many unspoken things about the members of her new family? She was entirely way too observant for her own good and I had to be more on guard now with her around.

"Try." I felt hideously lame for my simple statement, but it was the only thing I could think to say right then. The conversational ball was in her court now, not mine.

She sighed again and reached up to rake both hands through her close-cropped hair. Once-familiar emotions surged through me so quickly that I almost didn't notice it all at first. All of that took a momentarily back-seat as I watched her face completely empty of all emotions and defenses. She was entirely vulnerable in front of me right then, for the first time in almost a month. "All I want is a family, Edward. I have no memory of any part of my life, before I woke up in that bedroom. And this might unsettle you a little but, to be honest, your face was the first one I saw. You completely encompass my very first memory. Why is it so wrong that I would want to have some sort of relationship with you?"

Air felt sufficiently stuck in my throat as I watched her begin to turn away from me. That simple turn spurred me into action, causing me to lightly grab her bare upper arm and gently pull her back around to face me. Even though she was a vampire, and even though she could and already had laid me flat on my back; I still felt this pressing urge to handle her with care. Even though she was physically indestructable, she was still very emotionally and mentally damaged. That alone sparked a surprising desire to protect her. Much as I'd done with the human girl that had been the first to touch my dead heart. "Piper," I sighed and gently locked my other hand on her arm. I didn't think she would pull away from me, even though I could sense the brief temptation in her thoughts, I still wanted to be able to say this and have her look me directly in the eye. "I don't want to throw stones here, I honestly don't. But we're both pulling away from each other equally. When you learned I can read your thoughts, you hid from me for days. There was nothing I could have done about that but what I actually _did_ do. I gave you your space. Then when we were messing around in the woods, you did another complete 180 on me. I know there are things, a ton of things, about your past that you don't remember. But I don't think we'll be able to make any kind of progress until you figure out what's happened to you."

"You mean," She sighed and met my gaze levelly, thoroughly rocking me to my very core in the process, "until I figure out what caused me to become part of your family."

"It might help." I shrugged helplessly then suddenly released her. I could hear faint stirrings just outside the front door of the house and knew that our short-lived bout of intimacy was about to end. Rosalie and Emmett didn't have classes all day and I knew once they hit the front door, Rose would sweep the girl standing in front of me up into some whirlwind activity that would lead them into the early hours of the evening. But for right then, as I strode upstairs back to my bedroom, I was content in the knowledge that I'd said everything I needed to. At least for now. If it was one thing eternity taught me, there was always something more than needed to be said.

Just as I'd unknowingly predicted, Rose ended up claiming Piper for some girlie activity, Alice joining in almost as soon as she blew through the door. Everyone scattered from there and I somehow ended back up in the living room. This time with Esme, instead of Piper.

I could tell, just by the expression on her face, that there was something she strongly wanted to talk to me about. Her thoughts were clouded, a sure sign that she was trying to keep the topic private from me until she was ready to unleash it. I didn't have to wait long. Not two full minutes after we had settled, alone, on the couch; she delved into exactly what was muddling her thoughts.

"Have you had a chance to talk to Piper any since that day you took a run?"

My loving mother, in all ways but genetic, didn't waste any time getting right to the point. Something I loved immensely about her. The great thing about Esme wasn't the fact that she got straight to the point so much as how she chose to get straight to the point. It was extremely difficult, no matter how much time had lapsed since the creation of our family, to deny her anything. She exuded nothing but motherly concern for the wellbeing of her family. That was the upmost important thing to the female leader of the Cullen family. One of many reasons why she was so well-suited for Carlisle.

I'd always envied their relationship, wanting to find someone that could compliment me as well as Esme complimented Carlisle. I'd thought I had found that in Bella, and perhaps if I hadn't been so head-strong and stubborn; things might have turned out differently. But there was no sense in wasting time dwelling on the past. Even though that was insanely easier said than done. Clearing my throat lightly, merely a charade to help gather my thoughts, I nodded slowly and folded my hands properly in my lap. "We talked a little before everyone got home, yes."

"Are things any better between you?" No one could ignore the sense of tension that Piper and I brought into the Cullen household. It was nearly stifling at times, something I was extremely regretful for. How could everyone stand to still be around after all this time? Especially Jasper, who felt every single emotion and twinge that passed through this house and every surface of the outside world.

"I honestly don't know." I sighed and slouched down against the couch enough so that my head rested comfortably against the back of the wide, overstuffed white couch. "There are so many walls to get through, Esme. Not just with her, but with myself as well. I don't think this is something that could easily be fixed in a short span of time."

"But I think it's something you two should focus on. Edward, she's a part of this family. Carlisle is in the process of changing her records to reflect her place in our lives. And I think she really enjoys being around you."

That threw me a bit, even though there was some sort of inkling that had already been presented to me. "I really wish I knew what to say. I don't have anything against the girl, it's just...."

"She reminds you too much of Bella, doesn't she?"

There it was. The whole foundation of my problem with Piper North, soon-to-be Cullen. She _did_ remind me too much of the love I'd willingly destroyed. She had too much in common with the complicated and intricate beauty that was now a werewolf's wife. But there lay another problem with Esme's question. She wasn't Bella. She wasn't the girl I wanted to have feelings for. I didn't want to imagine what it would be like to have my arms around her, the way I'd imagined and actually acted on with Bella Swan. I couldn't bring myself to entertain the thought of letting her be to me what Bella could have been. What everyone else in my family had. Why I was so determined to be the outsider in our family, I wasn't sure. But there was something, no matter how small or tedious, keeping me from making that leap. Maybe not enough time had passed between telling Bella goodbye and this girl coming into our lives. Plus there were the girl's own issues to consider. She had no idea what had transformed her into the woman she now was. We didn't even know how old she had been as a human before Carlisle saved her. It was a near-miracle that we'd even been able to obtain her name.

"It's that and a few other things. Esme, I honestly don't know if I can contend with all of the demons that are unknowingly lurking in her past. Demons she doesn't even know exist. With Bella, I knew what I was fighting. I knew _exactly _what I was up against. With this girl, even though everything simply exists in the stages of friendship, I have absolutely no idea of what to expect. After all, she can't very well come out and tell me everything she's suffered. How am I to help her, and ultimately grow closer to her, if she doesn't know the very barriers she's helped put up to prevent that?"

"Maybe telling her about Bella will help solve all that. Maybe if this girl realizes the incredible loss you've suffered, I don't want to hear about that being your fault, but what if she can gain something from that? None of us know what will cause her next breakthrough. There are no visible triggers to help her remember."

I frowned then and fixated on an invisible piece of lint on the leg of my jeans. How could I tell my creater's mate that I wasn't interested in talking about Bella Swan with anyone? Least of all the newest vampire to join our coven, the same vampire that my entire family was hoping I would find my true other half in. What possible harm could it envoke if everyone involved realized just how much of myself I'd left with the tiny brunette in Forks?


	11. Chapter 11

_Stephenie Meyer's the genius, I'm just playing in her sandbox._

* * *

**CHAPTER ELEVEN:**

"You got something in the mail."

My head jerked up at Piper's quiet voice. She was standing in the doorway to my bedroom, holding a wide white envelope with our newest address written in clumsy scrawl. I couldn't immediately identify the penmenship or who the return address belonged to. But I had to admit that my curiosity was piqued.

Not thinking about how fast my movements were, I crossed the room in three wide strides and graciously took the envelope from her. "Thanks...Piper."

"Mhm." She inclined her head slightly then turned to head down the hall to her own room.

Suddenly, I did not want to be left alone with this letter. I didn't want to be alone in silence when I read the contents of this package quietly to myself. "You don't have to go." I admitted suddenly, looking bashfully at her as her steps faltered and she slowly turned back to face me.

"Oh. Okay." She nodded a little more firmly and stepped back into my bedroom. I didn't raise an eyebrow when she quietly closed the door behind her and leaned against it. She crossed her arms over her chest in an innocent gesture and kept her still-bloody eyes on the parcel in my hands.

Swallowing thickly, I carried the piece of mail to the couch and plopped down, nodding at the spare space for Piper if she wanted to sit down then carefully ripped into the envelope. There were several stacks of papers inside, sheets of notebook paper that stapled together. My heart, had it the ability, would have started racing when I read the first two words on the top page.

_Dear Edward...._

Jacob Black had written me a letter. I wasn't even sure he would know how to find me. But then again, we didn't exactly make our existance a secret. Especially since several Cullens and the two Hales of our family, were enrolled in prestegious schools.

_I could probably get in a lot of trouble for this, but I thought you deserved to know. I'm going against every instinct in my body in writing to you about Bella, but I would want to know how she's doing if I were in your place. It wasn't that hard to find you. After all, how many families under the name Carlisle and Esme Cullen exist in the United States? Well, not many, I can tell you that._

_I saw you hiding on the day of our wedding. To be honest, I was a little worried about seeing you there. I figured you had come back for her, to claim the love you'd walked away from. I'm not writing any of this to sound or seem insensitive. If it hadn't been for you, I never would have gotten as close as I am to her. I wouldn't have had the rare chance to fall in love with her and have her as my wife. But this isn't about me, as much as I'd like to write down every single thought I've ever had about you. I don't think it would do any good if you knew every single moment of pain you inflicted on Bella. But then again, you've probably seen everything. If you were at our wedding, you've probably been following her progress since the moment you left Forks._

_Anyway, enclosed are some letters I found tucked in a secret drawer. All of them are addressed to you, filled with things that she would probably have wanted you to know. That is, if you two had ever decided to keep in touch. I don't know what was said in them, that's between you and Bella. But I did make copies and felt this weird urge to send them to you. Again, not trying to inflict any pain. I just thought you would want some insight to what she's been thinking about since you left. Maybe this can help close the remaining doors on your relationship with her. Just speculation though, I don't know everything you've gone through because of your relationship ending. I know what she told me, the reasons you gave her for leaving. But since you came to our wedding, I'm willing to bet you lied to make her let go._

_But I do have to say one thing to you, Edward Cullen. Thank you. I know it's probably the hardest thing you've ever done, to leave her and force her to move on without you. I can't imagine how you accomplished that. But I can promise you that I will spend every single day of the rest of my life trying to make her happy. So, again, thank you. Not only for unknowingly opening the playing field for me, but for letting me be the one to love and protect her. I don't think I would've been able to show the strength you did on the day of our wedding. That's a favor I'll never be able to repay, but hope to by treating her the way I know you had wanted to, and giving her everything I have in my power to give her. I promise to keep her safe, happy, and loved for the rest of her life._

_-Jacob Black_

I swallowed thickly yet again as I stared at the neat pile of papers in my hands. It was only when I noticed the papers trembling did I realize that I was shaking. Me. A one hundred and eleven year old vampire, afraid to read the thoughts and written emotions of a twenty-one year old, married human woman.

"Who's it from?" Piper's quiet voice pulled me from the threshold of darkness that threatened to consume me.

I spared her a brief glance before I picked up the piece of paper holding Jacob Black's handwriting and shuffled it to the bottom of the pile. "An...old family friend. Or at least, I _think_ you might be able to call him that."

She nodded then, I could see it clearly from my periphial vision. But she surprised me by not taking her questioning any further. I could feel the curiosity emanating from her in waves, as well as in the mellow currents of her thoughts. She very much wanted me to elaborate, but seemed to know that I was momentarily uncapable of doing so. How could I explain Bella's existance to this girl? How could I tell her that Bella was everything I wished she was? The onset of pain and torment was too much for me to bare, I could only imagine how Piper would fair. And she didn't deserve it to be suddenly compared to someone she didn't even know. Especially in a circumstance she probably didn't even know about. A part of me was also working under the assumption that Piper thought of me as anything more than a cold and uncaring family member.

As I read the first letter, which had been dated months after my departure, I felt an odd hole forming in the pit of my stomach. It was very much like the same icy twist of pain that I'd encountered as I raced away from Bella on that fateful day. All so I wouldn't turn around and undo the web of lies I'd successfully spun around her. Jacob had been right. It was agony to leave her alone, to force her to move on without me and find a love healthier for her than that which I was capable of. She had that now, with someone else. Someone who could give her everything immortality denied me.

I jerked slightly in response when Piper's hand suddenly landed on my bare arm. The sleeves of my button-down had been rolled up to the elbows a while ago, force of habit after years of letting Alice have her way with my wardrobe. "I'm sorry." She whispered, her own voice being constricted by her vocal chords.

"For what?" I hastily threw the words into the air with a gruff undertone. As much as I didn't want to take this out on her, I was suddenly aware that she was in the direct line of fire. Wrong place, wrong time. That was always how these things seemed to go, right? My muscles felt jerky under my skin as I got to my feet to stow the letters. As much as I yearned to sit and read Bella's words, I wasn't able to do so yet. The icy pain swirling in my stomach was becoming increasingly more unbearable and all I could think of was a way to release it. To somehow expel the toxins that suddenly began to fill my body. All because Jacob Black had, had a moment of bravery to give me some peace of mind. He'd wanted me to know that Bella was happy now. Happy without me.

Completely unaware of what I was doing, I turned to my immediate left and easily sank my fist through an uncovered patch of drywall. The curtains that had hung in my Forks bedroom hung here now, but there were a few spaces along the wall left bare for any photographs or momentos to be tacked up if the occupant so desired. I did not. The only momento I had to leave was an almost perfect indention of my fist.

Piper yelped lightly in surprise and I became painfully aware of just how close I'd come to hitting her. She'd gotten up to follow me and I hadn't even realized it. Turning on my heel, confusion washed over me when I saw her cowering slightly behind me. Her arm was raised to protect the side of her head, like she was anticipating some kind of physical assault on her.

"I'm...I'm not going to hit you." I still sounded rough as I spun and faced away from her. It hurt to see her take protective action against me. Though it was strangely in-character with everything I knew of her, I didn't want this girl to be cowering in fear. In fear of _me._ I hadn't had a single thought that centered around hurting her physically. I realized belatedly that I hadn't made the same promise about hurting her emotionally.

I noticed the tiny nod she gave from behind her raised arm then slowly let it fall back to her side as she straightened up. "I guess I'm remembering more of my human life than I thought." She murmered, her throaty voice soon giving way to a bitter laugh before she angled toward the door. "I just...I wanted to make sure you got that. I'll leave you alone now."

"No." The simple word flew past my lips without a second's hesitation from my mind. I didn't want her to leave my room, still fearful of me. "Piper, I don't want you to be afraid of me. I would never hurt you."

The smile on her face was pitiful as she slowly turned back to face me, her tiny face strained underneath the patronizing expression. "Edward, I was raised to fear men. First by my father, then every bad relationship that came afterward. You aren't the first to make me flinch."

"But I want to be the last." I suddenly answered with such absolute conviction that I was left just as stunned as the tiny redhead before me.

"That would require you actually wanting to _be_ around me for longer than minutes at a time." The smile never wavered from her lips, but yet her words still felt like deep stabs to my insides. No matter how hard I tried, I just could not keep from inflicting pain on unsuspecting women. Women who had not spent the last hundred or so years, learning all my faults and imperfections.

"I never said I didn't want to be around you." I answered heatedly and took a determined step toward her. She backed up almost immediately, causing me to stop cold. "I just mentioned not knowing how to work around all these walls that seem to be in our way."

"Your walls seem easier to conquer than mine." Piper shrugged then, the tiny straps of her tank top moving against her collarbone as she gestured at the letters I'd just put away. "You know what's caused them. I only have the faint echos of memory to help me."

"Then talk to me." I replied suddenly, reaching her so quickly that she didn't have time to pull away as I grabbed her shoulders once again. "Tell me what you remember and let's see if we can piece it together."

"What if I don't want to know?" She shot back, her voice softer than I could have ever remembered it being. "What if I don't remember all the times my father hit me, or all of the boys that treated me like garbage once they got what they wanted from me? I'm sorry but maybe, just _maybe_, in this instance; ignorance is bliss."

"Ignorance is never bliss." I challenged then made a concerted effort to release her. All so she could leave me if she chose. "It always catches up to you in the end, no matter if your heart's still beating when it does or not."

"I really wish you'd stop speaking in riddles around me. It really does make me feel stupid."

"You're far from stupid." I couldn't help it, a small cynical smile graced my features as I shook my head slowly. "Do you remember how much schooling you finished?"

That brought her up short, like most questions posed to her. She was silent and very thoughtful for a few moments, even pacing away from me slowly as she became engrossed in her thoughts. "I...I can't really remember. I do know I never got to finish high school though." She frowned then and looked up at me curiously, even tilting her head slightly as she shoved her hands into the pockets of the ripped blue jeans covering her lower body from view. "How old were you when you were changed, Edward?"

"I was seventeen." I answered automatically, smiling sadly at her again as I looped my arms loosely across my chest.

"Hmmm," was her only response as she nodded slowly then laughed sardonically. "Who would have thought? Both of us forever trapped as seventeen year old children."


	12. Chapter 12

_**AUTHOR'S NOTE:**__ Three chapters in one day. Okay, so maybe writing while sick __**was **__a good idea. Anyway, hope this all makes sense. It'll pick up soon, promise._

_Stephenie Meyer's the genius, I'm just playing in her sandbox._

* * *

**CHAPTER TWELVE:**

Forever seventeen.

Yet another thing about Piper Cullen that confounded me. She was no longer Piper North. That girl had ceased to exist when Carlisle entered her life. She was now a full-fledged member of our family.

It was a little easier to spend time with her now, a few of the barriers in place seemingly have disappeared overnight. Of course, everyone in our family noticed the small exchanges that now made up our new daily routine. She had even begun sitting with me while I performed the menial task of completing homework. Her suddenly insatiable thirst for knowledge was refreshing, and a little challenging at times. I wasn't used to being around someone like Piper.

School had been difficult for her, she admitted late one night in the privacy of my bedroom. We had senselessly stretched out on my bedroom floor, not needing the humanistic comfort that came from laying on our stomachs to conquer a mound of Junior-level curriculum.

But it never phased Piper. If she felt any inferiority while in my presense, she was good at hiding it. Instead, she just asked questions and often helped me to complete assignments. Her favorites, I learned, lay in the world of English. She thrived on what she considered to be classics, the antiquity all but lost on me.

"Don't you understand why though?" She asked, her voice always soft and earnest as she looked at me with her shining, bloody eyes. "Not everyone grew up in the same lifetime as you. This is very much a mystery to my generation."

I just smiled, filled with limitless patience as she sloshed through the curriculum that I'd already been through thousands of times over. It was rare, but there were even times when Alice, Jasper, myself, and Piper all came together to tackle the tedious Hanover-based syllabus. Jasper was clearly enthralled with Piper on a scholastic level. Her thirst to learn as much as she could seemed to rival his and they were often still hard at work, long after Alice and I had given up for the night to do other things. As she approached her second month of life, she was interacting with our family as if she'd always been with us. She fit too easily in the family dynamic.

As her thirst grew, I learned more and more about her personality. Our levels of common interest were growing leaps and bounds and she even began to help Rosalie maintain the wide berth of family cars to our names. Her favorite, I noted, was the silver Mustang in my possession. It was a car she had the most knowledge with, idly claiming that the last human she'd dated had a car very similar to mine.

"He always talked about Mustangs. Of course, he couldn't afford one and ended up in jail when he got busted for boosting one just two years older than yours."

"Boosted?" I raised an eyebrow slightly, only acting in my ignorance at her terminology.

She rolled her eyes impatiently at me, thus reminding me of her gift at spotting lies and lightly kicked me. That resulted in easy laughter that seemed to be making the darker parts of my heart lighter. Now that I was allowing myself to let her in, at least a little, it was changing me in ways I hadn't expected or anticipated. It was very refreshing to have Piper as part of our family. Though one decision hadn't changed. The hopes of my family were just that; unfounded hopes. Maybe I was stubbornly holding onto something that should have been let go of long ago. I just could not bring myself to let go of the hold the girl before her still had.

I had just come home from school when I was surprised by my tiniest of sisters. Alice had beat me home, how I wasn't sure since I was her and Jasper's ride to school. But yet they were both waiting for me on the front porch, grinning from ear to ear despite the impending downpour.

"What am I about to walk into?" I asked cautiously, looking at both girls wearily as I slowly walked onto the porch.

"Piper has been shut up in the house way too long. We thought maybe a small shopping trip wouldn't hurt."

Instantly I was on the defensive. After all, Piper was still a newborn vampire. She hadn't been tempted yet with the scent of human blood. Plus there was the unfounded fear that I secretly held onto. What if someone in town recongized her as Piper North? She hadn't remembered yet where she had grown up, or what had caused the faint, healthy glow that had been buried beneath bruises just months before. I didn't want the unknown monster from her past to suddenly decend on her and disrupt all the progress she had made in such a short amount of time. "Alice...." I started warningly, only to be halted by Piper herself.

"Please, Edward?" She asked plainly, her voice heavily laced with the urgent desire to be out of the house. "You'll be with us and I already know how to combat the scent of human blood. I'm pretty sure I won't have any problems anyway. The scent of human blood always sickened me when I was human, I can remember that very clearly."

Ah, yet another likeness to Bella Swan. That number was growing in leaps and bounds as well. How was it possible that there were two women on this earth, so eerily alike that they had both attracted my interest? It had never seemed possible to me before, to find someone so closely resembling the girl I'd left behind. And to already have been brought over in to the world I fought so hard to keep Bella out of.

Thinking of her painfully reminded me of the stack of letters I hadn't touched since the day they arrived in the mail. Pushing that away, I just sighed and lazily rubbed the back of my neck. "Have you run this little jailbreak by Esme and Carlisle?"

Alice rolled her eyes impatiently as she bounded down the stairs and began to drag me, by the wrist, back to my car. "Stop being such a stick in the mud, Edward. Piper's been hinting at some new CDs, which you might like, and I need some new clothes."

"You do not." I protested, but followed her to the car anyway. Piper, snickering quietly behind me, brought up the rear. Before I could formulate a clear way to refute what the two girls wanted, Jasper had joined us and we were driving into town. Of course, Alice wasn't going anywhere without Jasper. And maybe it would help to have him around, so that Piper didn't feel like the weakest member of our family. Though, in all fairness, she was. Jasper had a marginally better track record than his newest sister, but I was trying very hard to stop faulting him for that. He was doing the best he could and so was Piper.

The chatter was kept light and carefree as I manuevered through the highway connecting our part of the outskirts to the main town. Piper sat beside me in the front seat with Alice and Jasper curled up together in the back. Each time I glanced in the rearview mirror, I felt an uneasy pang of hurt. I could have had that. If I listened to my family, I could very well have that now.

But once glance at Piper dashed all of those thoughts back into their mental cage. She kept glancing at the same scene in the backseat and the strangest looks kept crossing her features. It was almost as if she was trying to remember _and_ forget something at the same time. The enigma known as Piper Cullen would never cease to snare me. She grew with every new day she saw.

* * *

"You're going to give that credit card a heart attack!" I announced suddenly as Alice emerged from yet another designer-ladened store. This time, she'd claimed to go in for Piper. No one could tell her differently when it came to announcing that we were all perfectly capable of buying clothes for ourselves. Piper was a trooper though, taking it all in stride as the tiny brunette heaped more and more bags into her arms.

"You know half of this stuff is going to end up in her closet anyway." She muttered darkly as she fell into step bside me, Alice and Jasper leading the way through the slightly-crowded mall.

"How are you doing?" I asked softly, not letting my voice carry to the unsuspecting humans around us. Our counterparts could hear me perfectly and their steps faltered slightly as they awaited her answer.

"It's not as uncomfortable as it used to be to hold my breath." Piper responded back, her voice just as soft as mine had been. I honestly didn't know how she was doing it, where her unsurmountable self-restraint was coming from. But this girl never ceased to amaze me. She was capable of anything she set her mind to.

It wasn't until we reached out last destination that her resolve began to waver. It had been way too long since she'd last hunted, both her and Jasper. Jasper's eyes were darkening by the day, but he was still functioning properly under Alice's perceptive attention. It was up to me to maintain Piper the way Alice was supporting her mate.

Piper's arms had just been cleared of shopping bags so that she could peruse a music store when she caught a particularly delicious scent. I watched helplessly as her eyes glazed over, and the muscles in her neck and arms constricted violently beneath her skin. I could practically _taste_ the venom coating her mouth as she struggled to act as normal as possible. Alice and Jasper had been left outside the store to wait for us to make our purchases. But that would have to wait for another time.

"Piper?" I cautioned, poising myself right behind her so that I could grab her if she needed me to.

"Distract me, please?" I could hear the silent begging in her soft voice as her jaw tightened in determination. She was doing everything in her power to obstain from pouncing on the nearby human that was igniting her thirst in the worst way.

Not giving myself a second to think, I just stepped up behind her and pressed my chest against her back as I wound an arm protectively around her midsection. "Whatever you do, don't fight me." I warned subtly in her ear, hoping to remind her that she still had the ability to overpower me with a flick of her wrist.

She seemed almost eager to comply, relaxing back against me as her back stopped vibrating against my chest with unneeded oxygen. She was getting good at using her most valuable tool; stop breathing all together.

"Move your ribs so it still looks like you're breathing." I instructed directly into her ear, bending down enough so that my chin graced the top of her shoulder. Piper was following instructions beautifully and I surprisingly didn't hesitate in brushing my lips across the bare skin on the side of her throat. She was wearing a plain blue thermal top with ripped jeans, leaving a few slivers of skin exposed. Skin that I was determined to use as distractions so I could get her out of the shop and into the car without a major fight.

I felt the chill that shot down her spine, beginning right under where my lips hand landed and all the way down her spine. It was probably the wrong thing to do, and the worst imaginable time, but I decided to proverbially kill two birds with one stone. The human taunting her was, of course, male and had the most uninteresting thoughts. That is, until he had noticed Piper flipping through CD cases by herself. I hadn't been far from her at the time, but the boy had been oblivious to everything _but_ her. His mind was a lustful tangle of daydreams that all starred the beautiful vampire in my arms.

The sudden surge of jealousy that washed through me was disconcerting. I hated, absolutely _loathed_ the idea of this boy lusting after Piper. Even though I had no official claim to her in any way, I still couldn't keep the monster in my head from reacting instinctively. The monster behind my eyes could not be reasoned with, he very much saw Piper as _his._

_Keep this up and people are going to start staring._

Her thoughts distracted me enough to bring me back to the here and now. I was supposed to be getting her out of the store, not relishing in an undeserved moment of closeness. I could detect a faint hint of confusion, deeply embedded in the thought that had caught me. She was having the same issue I was. Right then, neither of us were entirely sure that I was acting to distract her, or on my own impulses.

The boy, her unintentional target, blinked when he saw us. I could see through the images in his mind that I had a more feral look on my face than I'd wanted. I looked down right possessive over the tiny body in my arms. Before I could growl at the boy, further sending him into disarray, I turned and began to pull Piper with me through the store.


	13. Chapter 13

_**AUTHOR'S NOTE:**__ I'm so __**SO **__sorry for the lack of chapters! Things have been hectic (yet again) for me. Between work and planning a wedding, writing sadly had to take a backseat for a while. But! Another chapter and I'm almost halfway through chapter fourteen. Expect that in the next day or so._

_Stephenie Meyer's the genius, I'm just playing in her sandbox._

* * *

**CHAPTER THIRTEEN:**

I had expected some kind of backlash when we got home, so when we walked up onto the porch to find Carlisle actually scowling at us; I knew that I hadn't been too far off course. It didn't take a mindreader to know what our father was thinking.

He was angry.

"Did you four have fun?" He asked once Jasper and Alice had escaped into the house. I couldn't help the glare I threw at my newest brother's back. It had been Alice and Piper's idea to spring our newest family member, the least she could have done was make herself and Jasper stay for the fallout.

"Yes." Piper's voice held the normal amount of rasp as she faced Carlisle. Her thoughts were a little hazy to me, but I could tell that she was a little fearful of the blonde vampire standing before her. Yet she stood completely calm and collected beside me. "Edward was just acting as chaperone. I'm to blame for the outing. I know I shouldn't have done it, but I just needed to get out of the house for a little while. Nothing bad happened, Edward was there to keep me calm."

Whatever he'd been expecting when we walked into the house, Carlisle hadn't been prepared for Piper to take the heat. I hadn't either, for that matter. I'd already accepted my half of the responsibilities and some part of my mind dimly reminded me of the urge to shoulder Piper's part as well. I strangely didn't want her to have to face reproachful glances from the others.

Even though I wasn't really needed any longer, thanks to honing in on Carlisle's thoughts, I stayed where I was anyway. I wasn't about to let the tiny redhead beside me face her first lecture on her own. I couldn't will my feet into the house if I'd wanted to.

"I understand." He spoke finally, and there was a twinge of remorse in his voice. He hated the thought of Piper being confined to the house when she'd spent so long trapped in a hospital before her transformation. While he was glad that Alice, Jasper, and I had been there to keep an eye on her, he still had some concerns. Some of them centered around Piper's reaction to humans, and the other half seemed to cling to Jasper's growing immunity. Everyone knew that this wasn't his first choice of lifestyle. He'd made the decision to "go vegetarian" because of Alice. But every since that fateful accident, he'd resolved to make a more concerted effort. "Go on in the house, please? I need to speak to Edward."

Her tiny head bobbed on her neck and she walked into the house, but not before giving me a tiny glance over Carlisle's shoulder. Once she was gone, I returned my attention and shoved my hands into the pockets of my pants. Here was the lecture, Piper wasn't going to be held responsible.

"How tempted was she?"

"She was fine." I admitted, which was the truth. Piper hadn't been tempted by the scent of human blood until the boy in the record store had fixated on her. "She only had one close call. We were in the music store when she caught the scent, but asked me to distract her instead of going after him. Then _I_ had to worry about not draining him on the spot."

"Why?" Carlisle's fair eyebrows knit together as he crossed his arms casually across his chest. It was a futile gesture, one that overtook all of our bodies from time to time. "Your abstience is nearly as impecable as mine."

"It was his thoughts." I sighed then frowned. I hated to admit weakness of any kind, and I felt like I'd somehow failed somewhere in surrendering this piece of information. How could I tell my father that the only reason I'd been tempted was because a girl I had no right to claim had been admired by a human? "He was...well, he was trying to imagine Piper naked and it irked me."

"It irked you?"

This was one of the best things about Carlisle Cullen; he didn't judge. Not in his body language, or in his thoughts. He honestly didn't seem to blame me for wanting to jump to Piper's defense. Albeit in an extreme way, but he didn't take my omission as lightly as I'd thought he would. I was really turning pessimistic as the years wore on.

"Yes." I finally admitted and reached up to pinch the bridge of my nose; something I always did without warning when I felt particularly wary or stressed. This whole Piper situation, if it could even be called that, had me stressed to the wildest stretches of my imagination. "I can't explain why. I just didn't like some _boy_ staring at her like she was a piece of meat."

"Even though he probably would have ended up on the meaty side of the equation." Carlisle joked in an attempt to lighten the mood that had suddenly fallen on us.

I managed a small smile then was sure the conversation was going to end there. Carlisle wasn't mad that we had sprung Piper for a few hours, not if it was something she had felt she needed and could handle. She had. Quite beautifully, I might have added verbally if asked. But that was yet another thing to ponder as I escaped through the house and up to my bedroom. How _had_ Piper been able to stay so calm and rational in the store? She was a newborn, in every single way. The kind of restraint she had shown took years to perfect, if not centuries. But she was only months old to this life and already acting like someone twice my age, if not right at my age.

I wasn't aware that I was headed for her bedroom until I noticed the familiar arch of her door. It was open to reveal her sitting stoically on her bed. She was staring out the window to her right, her perfect lower lip jutting out slightly as she contemplated the day's events.

"Everything okay?" I asked quietly, not wanting to disturb or surprise her. I was increasingly more considerate of her than I'd originally thought I was capable of.

She stirred then, her body relaxing as she turned her head to look at me. Her hands stayed folded neatly in her lap and she pulled her pouty lower lip in between her teeth. "Yeah." She muttered around the bit of flesh in her mouth and gave me a small nod.

I took that as an invitation to enter and slid into the rocking chair I'd taken up once before when I found myself on the verge of a lengthy conversation with her. It always happened in her bedroom too, something that unnerved me slightly. Maybe because of the close proximity of her bed. The human side of me was quickly catching up to my darker nature. It was practically a neck-and-neck tie for throwing caution to the wind and taking what my body was suddenly, desperately craving; her bare skin against mine.

"Edward?" She asked, her voice pulling me from the deepest pit of thought. That was the farthest I'd ever let my thoughts stray, I'd actually had images in my head of acting on such desires before she vocally barged in. Alice was going to have a field day with this, I could already feel her charged, excited energy from here.

"Sorry." I muttered and propped my elbow on the arm of the chair so my temple could fall into my waiting hand. "I zoned for a minute."

"Why did you distract me the way you did?" Piper no longer seemed scared to ask me questions now. She had never been this honest or blunt with me before. But her thoughts were tucked away from my extra ability. That was probably a good thing right then.

I opened then closed my mouth several times as I contemplated her question. It was one I didn't have a clear-cut answer for. I didn't even know myself why I reacted the way I had. I could have played it off, claiming that I was reacting to what I'd gathered from the boy's mind. But it felt like a cheap way out. She deserved a real answer, especially after my reaction in the parking garage. "I don't really know, to be honest with you."

She nodded then and looked down at her hands, her fingers twisting into one another in a way that would make any human cringe. She was nervous. Even though her thoughts were cut off from me, I got a small taste of that emotion from her easily. She was vibrating with charged energy, I could only assume it was either nervousness or embarrassment for what had happened at the mall.

"I don't want you to feel embarrassed." I spoke and moved so suddenly that it surprised us both. One minute I was reclining in the rocking chair, and the next, my body was molding against her back. One hand braced me on the mattress and the other came to rest gently on her shoulder. I somehow wanted, maybe even _needed_ for her to turn and look at me right then. "I think you might be feeling that way and I do apologize for how I acted once you were out of danger. It was just...."

"A reaction to what you picked out of that boy's brain." She muttered and her face shut down as she turned to look at me. The expression was almost chilling in a way. I could actually see her steel herself up from me. She was now impenetrable and I wasn't entirely sure how I felt about this. "You don't have to explain." A soft shake of her head stirred the air around us and I was hit with the floral scent of her true nature. The sweet, almost delicious aroma filled my senses so completely that I missed it when she spun from her place on the bed and moved to her door. "You're off the hook, Edward. The incident has already been forgotten."

I nodded, knowing that we were going to gain no more further ground today. She wasn't responding to me the way she normally did and even if I wanted to, I couldn't use my gift on her. Not only was she like a mental and emotional fortress, but I had promised her as much privacy as I could give her when she didn't have her mind guarded. I rose to my feet then and left her to her mysterious thoughts. What would she be thinking now that she didn't have to deal with me?

Better yet, would I be able to make any sense of how I'd reacted in the garage? I tried, in vain, to silence the little voice in my head that was screaming I'd been lying to myself all along. There was just no way I could keep my defenses down against someone like Piper Cullen. Even though she was still, in a wide myraid of ways, a complete mystery to herself and everyone around her.

But as I headed outside to pull my car around to it's slot in the garage, I silently swore that I would never give her a reason to add my name to the list of those that had hurt her while she was still soft, warm, and unbearably breakable.

* * *

School had been a complete waste of time, but yet I'd gone anyway. With three months passing since Piper's awakening into our family, things had just become even more strained between us. Whenever she was with another member of our family, she was open and happy. But if I happened to intrude on that, she shut down just as quickly as she had that day in her bedroom. She still hadn't let go of her last outing into the public world.

Locked up in my room, I ignored the small tap on my door and focused on the piece of paper in front of me. I was supposed to be doing homework, but I just couldn't concentrate. It felt too weird now to be alone in this task. Up until the trip to the mall, Piper had been adamant about being around when I completed my menial schooling. She thrived on it and had actually restored some of my enthusiasm.

It had felt great, almost exhillerating to bring something new home for her to learn. Even though a lot of time had passed since our last homework session, my infalliable mind could still recreate the expression that would overtake Piper's features whenever she figured something out on her own. While she'd had no real problems asking for my help, I knew her thrill had been greater when she figured everything out for herself.

But that now appeared to be a think of the past. When the trembling of my visitor's thoughts died away, I sprang to my feet and began to rifle for the pack of letters I'd stowed away. I hadn't been ready, up until now, to begin reading Bella's letters to me. There had been some deep, buried part of me that just did not want to know how she had faired without me. Even though I had the visable confirmation of her marriage to Jacob Black, the words penned in her own hand seemed to hold a much heavier weight. It was like the final push I would need to close the door on that part of my life forever.

Instead of flipping to the very first letter, I found my fingers nimbly flicking through the pages until I found her last letter. It had been been written the day before her wedding to Jacob.

_Dear Edward,_

My heart felt like it would shatter, just reading those two simple words in her scribbled handwriting. She'd always loathed how she wrote, claiming that I had much neater handwriting than she. And for the most part, it was true. By the time I had decided to disappear from her life, I'd been able to sign her name just as she could.

_This is probably going to be the last letter I write to you. Even though I can't bring myself to mail these (I have no idea where you ended up, or if I even cross your mind now), I still feel a little better after writing you. This one seems to be the most important out of the whole batch._

_I'm not angry at you anymore. Even though I can still remember the words you spoke in the forest outside of my house, I have to push past the pain of that. It's not fair for me to sit and dwell anymore, hoping you'll change your mind and come back. I know now that the love we had left when you did. I accept that, finally. It took me a really long time, but I have. I'm choosing to believe that you somehow forced yourself to stop caring so that I could find everything I know you wanted for me._

An audilable groan left my lips when I read the last part of that paragraph. Bella had always been more observant than I gave her credit for. She'd finally figured out the true reason why I'd left her in Forks. Though I still wasn't sure if she still believed, at the time of her writing this, that I no longer loved her. I'd cited distractions as the cause of my pulling away from her. In that time, nothing could have distracted me from wanting to spend every possible moment with her.

_I've met someone new. Well, he isn't really new. Jacob Black is the son of Charlie's best friend. I don't know if you remember the Black family. From La Push?_

Oh, how I remembered them. It had been the same Jacob Black that had revealed my true nature to her. Of course, he hadn't believed it back then but he'd still lifted the veil from her eyes nonetheless.

_You probably do because of that pact between you and Jacob's ancestors. Yes, I know all about that and I actually believe in it now. Which just gives me even more proof that you're as good as I'd always thought you could be. I hope the treaty is still in tact, but I can't be sure. After all, I have no idea what you're up to now. You could have found someone to take my place by now._

That had stung. Worse than I could ever begin to describe. Bella sure knew how to cut someone with her words. But a small smile pulled at the corners of my lips as I forced myself to continue on.

_Sorry, didn't mean to get catty there. I'll admit, it does still hurt sometimes. I don't like thinking of you with someone else, someone that I couldn't be for you. But I just can't begrudge you that anymore. I don't want you to spend the rest of your existance alone, hating yourself and everything you'd become. You deserve the love that exists in your family. I hope everyone is still doing okay. I miss them all terribly and I hope Alice doesn't hate me for how things ended._

_But the point of all this is one thing; I've finally let you go. It's too painful to hold onto everything and it's time I moved on with my life. Jacob's very good to me and I think you'd like him very much. He's able to protect me from myself just as well as you were. He loves me and I can finally let myself love him now. Granted it's not the same way I felt toward you, but he's been able to accept me as-is and that really worked in our favor. It's different kind of love now, one that will never tarnish what we had. We're going to get married. Isn't that weird? Me, Bella Swan, married. Renee was actually thrilled when I finally got the courage up to tell her. And of course, Charlie was elated too. He's finally forgiven you now too, even though he still doesn't know all the details from...well...you know...._

"Phoenix." I sighed, then blinked in surprise when I actually said that aloud. "Oh, Bella...." I frowned again and covered my face with both hands. I suddenly felt exhausted, providing a vampire could even _feel _that. Reading Bella's final letter hadn't been as good of an idea as I'd originally thought. Especially when I felt a familiar trickle of thoughts suddenly against my back.

"Who's Bella?"


	14. Chapter 14

_**AUTHOR'S NOTE:**__ A new chapter. Sorry, I've become a little stalled in writing this. I know I keep mentioning that things will pick up soon, and they will. I just have to figure out the sequence of how I want everything to unfold. Anyway, this chapter probably doesn't contain much, but here it is._

_Stephenie Meyer's the genius, I'm just playing in her sandbox._

* * *

**CHAPTER FOURTEEN:**

As soon as I saw who had unintentionally intruded on my moment of dispair, my eyes seemed to latch onto the cream carpet beneath her bare feet.

It seemed now was going to be time for me to come clean with Piper. At least a little bit.

I sighed in spite of myself and shrugged as I turned to bodily face her. Even though my eyes were still downcast, I could hear the muted buzz of confusion from her mind. She had no idea what she had been about to walk in on, her only goal before hearing my moaned omission was that she had a question for me from Carlisle. A pocket of my mind tucked that away for later as the main part of my brain focused on trying to answer her question as painlessly as I could. But I just could not do that. There seemed to be something hindering me from telling this mysterious girl who Bella was.

"It's okay if you don't want to tell me." She spoke finally, breaking the fallen silence between us. Her arms were tucked tightly against the front of her faded tee shirt, bottom lip between her teeth with the saddest expression I'd ever seen on her face. "It's probably none of my business anyway."

She was thinking that I didn't want her to know, that she'd crossed some sort of invisible line and slipped into some private space she had no business being in. It was all the furthest thing from the truth.

Suddenly, I wanted this girl to know every single thing about me that she wanted to. I wanted to be able to sit with her and talk of my past, as long as she was a willing participant. Blowing out a breath I hadn't been conscious of holding, I shook my head and quickly rose to my feet when she started for the door. "No, it's not like that." I announced, knowing I would need to start speaking immediately if I wanted to keep her from leaving. "Bella...she's a girl I left behind a few years ago."

"Oh." The quiet surprise in her voice would have amused me in any other normal circumstance. Piper nodded and slowly turned back around to face me. Her hair wasn't styled, laying perfectly straight against the back of her head. There was a boyish quality to her appearance when she wore her hair like this, but I couldn't fully let it register right then. "How long ago did you...leave?"

"Three years." I answered and winced at how quiet my voice had become. My knees buckled under an invisible weight and I found myself sitting with a small blink of my eyes. "Three years ago, I decided that I knew what was best for her and left town. She was human, the age you were before...."

"Before I was changed." She supplied quietly and moved to fold herself on the floor at my feet. Her legs tucked gracefully underneath her body, needing no aid in changing her position. There was a heart-wrenching grace to it all, I noted dimly. "Did you...I mean, was there ever a possibility that you were going to bring her over?"

"For a while." I conceeded with a sharp nod of my head. I'd assumed that it would nearly destroy me to talk to Piper about the girl I kept unknowingly comparing her to. How was it fair for this girl to hear about her competition without the knowledge that she actually _had_ someone she was fighting with? I hadn't even known it until just now. That too was pushed aside as I nearly threw myself into a half-assembled explanation. "She wanted to be...one of us. But I couldn't consent to it. I didn't want that kind of life for her. Not for Bella, who deserved more than I could ever give her. She was accident prone, probably still is." I added with a mirthless laugh and shrug of my shoulders. "But my world kept hurting her. She was the victim of a tracker, which is a vampire that specializes in stalking his or her victims. He nearly killed her when she tried to run. There were other instances where I felt like it was my fault she was being hurt."

"What was the final straw?" If Piper was thinking anything specific about what I was telling her; her thoughts were keeping that under tight lock and key. "You couldn't have reached the decision to leave so quickly. You sound like you really cared about this girl."

"I did." I nodded with another quiet sigh. "She was unlike anything I'd ever known, any other person I'd ever met. Bella Swan very nearly became my undoing. You know how humans' blood have a very specific flavor?" When she nodded, I mimiced the gesture and continued. "Bella had the most _intoxicating_ blood I'd ever smelled, I very nearly drained her the day we met. I was pretending to be a high school junior then, just as I am now and she was my lab partner in Biology." I had to smile right then at the irony of it all. Two vampires talking about the human facade their family had adopted in order to mainstream.

"But you didn't." She guessed slowly, one eyebrow raising as she leaned her arms on her thighs. "You didn't answer my question though. What made you leave her, Edward?"

I frowned and clenched my eyes shut in near exasperation. Leave it to Piper to be so astute that it would irritate me. "Alice threw her a birthday party when she turned eighteen. One papercut, while opening the present I'd given her, resulted in me throwing her across a table with crystal dishes so that Jasper couldn't attack her. His tolerance was still very shaky back then, but since that night he's made a more concerted effort."

"I was wondering about that." She revealed with a small shake of her head. The soft rumble of her statement threw me momentarily. Had Jasper mentioned something to her about my moody demeanor? Did she, deep down inside, have a secret knowledge about why I was always so cautious and distant with her? She shook her head slightly then, as if to unlodge some quiet thought. I watched silently as she bit down on her lower lip yet again then looked back up at me. Her bloody eyes were wide and innocent as she stared up at me. It didn't take a peek into her mind for me to know that she was trying to be as nonjudgemental as she could be with her next string of words. "Jasper mentioned her once, but he never said her name. I asked why he was always so...formal around humans and he told me that he had caused your last relocation."

"Leave it to Jazz to start laying the puzzle pieces." I conceeded with a small, bitter laugh as I laid my arms over my thighs and stared down at the floor between us.

"Can I ask you something?" She asked in her quiet, raspy voice. I looked up and noticed that her eyes were still wide and innocent.

"Go ahead." I inclined my head slightly and waited tensely for whatever she was about to ask of me.

"If you could go back to that night, knowing what you know now; would you go back and make the same decision?"

For once, she was asking a question that brought _me_ up short. It was always the other way around, but only because of the past she still couldn't remember clearly. I knew, from Alice and Rosalie's whispered conversations with Esme and Carlisle, that she had a few memories back. But they were only about people that had held some importance in her human life. They couldn't have been too important though, at least not where she was concerned, since she was still unclaimed. "In a heartbeat." I finally answered, not being able to ignore the sudden weight of pain flaring in my chest.

Only, I couldn't be sure if it was from thinking about going back and staying in Bella's life; or if it was because of the look that ghosted across Piper's face once I'd answered her question. I had just said something that she very obviously didn't want to hear.

* * *

After my clipped explanation of Bella Swan's impact on my life, Piper had delved into the search of her own past. I hadn't mentioned any of the pivotal moments that had transpired between us in the past few days, and she didn't seem to want to do the same. Neither one of us even _thought_ about bringing up the moment in the garage, once we'd left the mall. I'd thought about it plenty of times as the days stretched on into the fifth month of her life. I still felt horrible for how I'd reacted that day, that guilt only intensifying when she stopped asking to accompany me into town. She didn't trust herself around humans, that was the lie she was basing her seclusion on. But I knew better. One accidental glimpse into her head had confirmed that when I carried her through the garage, ignoring her requests to let her go, then bodily threw her into the car; I had really shaken her up that day. And now there was the acknowledgement of Bella between us. The barriers were just stacking up between us yet again. There was just no gaining any common ground with this girl.

Everyone was starting to get restless as the weather grew darker and more rainy. Alice kept mentioning the possibility of a large storm that would give us the cover needed for a game of baseball. Thankfully, I wasn't the only one with reservations about that activity. No one had forgotten about the last time we assembled together to partake in America's favorite pasttime. It was that one game that had almost cost Bella her life for the second time.

"Hey." I was pulled unceremoniously out of my thoughts by a new voice. I hadn't even heard anyone approach my shaded area of the backyard. I'd been trying to clear my head so I could think, the tree above my head providing enough coverage so I wouldn't be pelted constantly by falling raindrops.

Alice had trudged through the rain to come talk to me. Of course, an umbrella was open above her perfectly styled hair, leaving her dry and unrumpled. I could count on one hand the number of times I'd seen my tiny sister dishevled and dirty. Alice Cullen prided herself on her appearance being perfect at all times.

"What's up?" I asked suddenly. There was no way my sister would have come out in the downpour if she could help it. There was something on the tiny vampire's mind, but she wasn't letting me in on it mentally. She knew how to deflect me when it really mattered most.

"I just wanted to talk to you about Piper." She murmered, her tiny voice clear as a bell over the chaos of Mother Nature. She turned sveltly and sat down beside me on the blanket I had spread out beneath me. It was only slightly damp and wouldn't damage her clothes beyond repair. Not that any of us would ever have to worry about destroying clothes. Alice prided herself on us never wearing the same thing twice. I was the only one left in our family that still fought her on that philosophy. "She's become obsessed with her past."

"As she should." I mumbled and let my head fall back against the wide trunk of an oak behind me. "It's not right for her to still be in the dark after five months."

I felt the slight change of air around me as my words stired Alice. One glimpse out of the corner of my eye caused me to look away immediately. Her tiny eyes were set in anger, her lips pressed into the thinest of lines. "What changed your mind? You've always been so against her finding out the truth."

I sighed then, frowning even more with the absence of human relief from filling my lungs with rain-scented air. I could smell everything from my place on the ground; the rain as it fell in sheets around us, the grass as the percipitation met it, even the trees as their foliage continued to decay in the cold environment. I looked out around us as my thoughts collected themselves. It had always been so easy to sit and talk with Alice, after all we were kindred spirits in more ways than one. But now there was a hint of strain, I had to think clearly about what I wanted and didn't want to tell her. But it was a useless effort. Alice could foresee my lies coming back to bite me in the ass. So I went with the only thing I could clearly focus on.

"I've learned too much about her for the past to continue to be a mystery to her."


	15. Chapter 15

_Stephenie Meyer is the genius, I'm just playing in her sandbox._

* * *

**CHAPTER FIFTEEN:**

"_I don't care, I don't want to see him._"

Curiosity snared me long before I angled my car down the obscured path of my family's driveway. I could hear the faint tremors of the commotion in the house, whatever awaiting me was bigger than any other reception before. The only one that had upscaled the intensity I was about to walk in on had been my homecoming a year and half before. In a completely different location right above the border lining Canada with Washington.

Parking in the garage, I quickly climbed out and jogged into the house. My perfect hearing gave me a clear path of where the others had congregated and I had joined them before anyone else responded to the heated statement.

Piper was facing my family, the expression on her face drawn tight with anger. It had flowed throughout the rest of her body, her fists were clenched at her sides, the thighs of her jeans drawn taunt over the outlines of stressed muscles. Muscles tensed to flee if the moment presented itself.

I didn't need to speak verbally to find out what was going on. Carlisle was already thinking everything I needed to know and from where I stood, behind my brothers and sisters; his worst fear was playing out before his very eyes.

_I should have listened to my instincts. There's no possible way she would have wanted to know about the visitor at the hospital. She hasn't mentioned anyone from her human family, even if she could have remembered them by now. And there's surely been only one mention of a male. Obviously he's the same male that I saw earlier...._

Someone had finally come looking for Piper. She'd been tracked down and someone in the hospital, not knowing what had come of Piper North, pointed the mystery man in Carlisle's direction. Jason North had caused quite the commotion with his presence.

I saw him through my father's eyes, looking relaxed as he stood across from Carlisle with the doctor's desk separating them. He was tall, possibly my height and of the same build as my body. His eyes were a vibrant blue, glittering with hidden secrets and closed emotions. His skin was tanned moreso than Piper's had been before her transformation. He had dressed simply for his visit to the hospital in jeans that looked new and a black button down shirt. The only piece of his appearance that unsettled me was the worn leather of his boots. They weren't simple work boots, but riding boots. Something a person would wear while directing a motorcycle through traffic.

Everyone else knew as much as I seemed to. Alice's eyes were glazed over in the search of a future event, Jasper stood protectively beside her, holding her up as she lost herself in the unknown. He was vibrating with the anger and uncertainty of the room. Esme looked on the verge of tears at the thought of losing one of her children. Even Rosalie's face held emotion as she stared at the ground beneath her high-heeled feet. She seemed to know the significance of this visitor.

I didn't hesitate in plunging into her mind. She'd talked more with Piper about the circumstances leading her to the hospital than anyone else in the family. She had been the one to gently tell Piper of the rape that had escalated to her severe beating. I wasn't sure if Piper had connected everything yet, but my blonde sister had. Jason North wasn't blood bound to Piper.

"_What_?!" I hissed out between clenched teeth. Everyone came to life then, all whirling around to face me as I caught up to what everyone else, minus Piper was thinking. Her thoughts were closed to me, something that always happened when she was angry and on the defensive.

"Edward." Esme was at my side in the blink of an eye. Curling her arms around my left bicep, she began to steer me from the room. As if that would defuse the tension I'd walked head-first into. "Come with me, please? Let the others talk."

"No." I nearly growled and was instantly taken aback mentally. I had never shown Esme any kind of opposition before. Ever. She was my mother, having taken up the role Elizabeth Masen had left in her death. I hadn't been raised to ever disrespect my mother, even if this woman hadn't physically given birth to me. Esme had gained that respect almost instantly after joining Carlisle and me. "What's going on? Who's come to find Piper?"

I wasn't entirely sure why I was feigning ignorance as I dug my heels into the wooden floor beneath me. I couldn't be careful about how much strength I used to stay put. Tiny divets appeared beneath my sneakers, grinding the wood into perfect indentions of my heels.

Carlisle stepped forward with a plan already forming in his mind. "Edward," his voice was calm as he addressed me, taking Esme's place at my side. She went back to the family, flanked by Emmett and Rosalie. "I think it would be best if you and I talked privately."

"Why?" I sputtered and looked up at him with a wild expression on my face. I could feel it through every frozen pore and line in my skin. "This doesn't directly concern me."

"Obviously it does." Piper spoke for the first time since I'd come into the room. I was nearly knocked sideways when I was suddenly granted entrance into her mind. She didn't want to talk to Carlisle alone about Jason North. For some unseen reason, she wanted _me_ there. Why, I wasn't entirely sure but I nodded anyway.

"Please go hunt." Carlisle turned long enough to give directions to everyone else. He wasn't about to let them stay in the house while he spoke to Piper and me about the unexpected visitor. They broke into groups then, nodding before stealing out of the house to go feed. I would need to do that again soon, I reminded myself darkly. My eyes were darkening and I couldn't let myself get too thirsty. I was determined to keep temptations as far down as I could.

I didn't make a sound as I followed the head of my family up to his office. Piper, who had easily fallen into step beside me, was just as silent. Her thoughts had once again been locked away from me and stayed that way as we shut ourselves up in Carlisle's home office.

"Piper, he seemed very adamant in seeing you." He wasn't wasting any time in getting down to business. I poked around in his mind to confirm my own suspicions. He wasn't sure how long he could placate this man before he picked up his search again. There was no telling when this boy, I nearly scoffed at my train of thought, would show up at our doorstep and demand to see his lost family member.

Only, she wasn't his 'lost family member'. She'd been a teenage wife when dropped off at the hospital.

"I don't care." She announced again, her voice low but full of conviction. At least she seemed to remember the place this boy held in her life. "Carlisle, I may not remember much but what I do remember? No." She shook her head violently and turned her back on us. The cotton of her white tank top stressed into lines between her shoulderblades, the hem drawn up involuntarily above her hipbones.

I winced as lust ricocheted through me. How could we be standing here, talking about Piper's _husband_ while I fought off unwanted waves of desire? I hated the fact that there was a person walking this earth that had that title. From what little I knew of him, he was completely undeserving of it. Marriage was one of the highest values on my list, something that didn't change when I did. People weren't supposed to enter into that union and treat each other the way this girl had apparently been treated. If he had loved her in any form or fashion, there was no possible way he could have gone this long without getting in touch with her. Where had he even _been_ when she was originally hospitalized?

Piper's voice provided the distraction I needed to plunge back into the conversation as rationally as I needed to be right then. Though there was no mistaking the suddenly close proximity of her body to mine, I managed to keep my eyes on the floor instead of flying up to meet hers. "I can't see him, I'm sorry." She sounded so wounded right then that I was knocked off-kilter once again by this girl. The surprises just kept coming with this girl. "I don't care what he was to me while I was human. I don't care that I had his last name and everything it entailed. I just do not care." She enunciated the last three words with such percision that I was nearly beside myself in amazement at her tenacity. And I'd always called Rosalie the most stubborn woman I knew!

"He doesn't exist in my world." She announced again, her shoulders straightening into a defiant stance as she stared calmly at our father. "I want to stay dead to him."

Carlisle bowed his head, almost as if he was struggling beneath the weight of Piper's words. But he finally found himself nodding and looked up at her again. "I'll never force you to do something you don't want to do. I hope you know that."

"I do." She nodded and her body seemed to relax with the change of the conversation's direction. "And I more than appreciate everything you've done for me, Carlisle. I wouldn't be standing here right now without your compassionate decision. But I'm just...." Her head bowed then and I was sure she would have been crying right then if she still had the ability to. Her eyes didn't lift from their position as she forced the rest of the words from her throat. "I'm not strong enough to face the man that used my love for him against me."


	16. Chapter 16

_Stephenie Meyer's the genius, I'm just playing in her sandbox._

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**CHAPTER SIXTEEN:**

Piper North had left a husband behind when she became part of my family.

How could a person digest that and go on as if nothing had happened?

I had no idea how that was entirely possible, but Piper was doing just that. The sudden appearance of her human husband hadn't phased her in the past two days. At least, not to where anyone could notice from her appearance.

There was definitely no way she could go out in public now. Jason North was practically living at the hospital now, hoping to get another moment with Carlisle. His wildest hope, which was easily picked up on by my father; he hoped that by staking out the hospital, he would get a glimpse of his missing wife. That single trail leading him to Piper was drier than the desert during the summer months. No one had known Piper's name when she was a patient. Piper North hadn't existed in the town of Hanover, only Piper Cullen. There was no mention of the woman this boy was seeking. It had all been carefully obscured by a family of vampires.

We'd been trying to protect her from the very start, none of us had even realized it though.

The rain had stopped, something I was a little grateful for. If not for the sudden uproar of someone from Piper's past, I was sure the rainy days would have been filled with Rosalie complaining about her hair getting wet, or Alice trying desperately to keep her clothes dry as we trudged back and forth from the house, to school.

But that had even been taken out of the equation. Because of Jason North and Piper's refusal to see him, our lives had come to a screeching halt. I didn't mind it so much, it gave me the ability to do what I most wanted. I could sit and make sure that Piper was okay and protected. Not that she needed it in her raw state of vampirism, but it did make me feel a little better to know she wasn't far away. Was that something I would ever admit to my family? Not a chance.

I could hear her footsteps before I heard her voice. Piper quietly exited the house and slid onto the porch step beside me. It was a bit of a tight fit, but she didn't look bothered by sitting so close to me. My muscles coiled to instinctively wrap my arm around her shoulders and draw her tiny body up against my side. It was a foolish desire, one that took a little effort to fight back; but it didn't throw me mentally. I had become used to wanting to find little ways to touch the newborn vampire beside me. I couldn't imagine how many years she'd gone without the physical level of comfort in her life.

"Things really are a mess, huh?" She sighed the words out as she stretched her arms over the knees of her jeans. They were worn, but not in strategic places. I couldn't tell if this was a pair of jeans Alice had seen yet or not. Probably not, judging by the fact that Piper still had them in her possession. She had damaged them during her very first hunting trip. The sentimentality was probably going to be what saved them from Alice's wrath.

"You might say that." I conceeded with a small incline of my head before turning it sideways to look at her. "How are you doing with all of this?"

She shrugged and her throat constricted slightly as she swallowed thickly. "As okay as can be expected, I guess. I knew that I'd left someone behind, someone that treated me horribly. But I never thought that it would have been my _husband_." She cringed as she said that last word, making the green-eyed monster behind my eyes a little happier. If we had to be talking about this, that sadistic little monster was going to pick up as many hints as he could.

"Do you remember why you married him so young? How long you've been married?"

Piper pursed her lips together thoughtfully as she stared at the clearing in front of us and slowly shook her head. "No. That part's still a complete mystery to me." She sighed then and the straight line of her full lips dipped slightly into a frown.

"Do you want to tell me what you do remember?" I asked quietly, almost hesitantly.

That singular tone of my voice, something she'd never heard until this moment, was what made her look at me finally. She would've been blushing if blood still pumped through her veins instead of the acrid venom that kept us going. "I don't remember anything good from my life, Edward. I doubt you'd want to hear horror stories."

"Did you want to hear about Bella?" I challenged, even raising my eyebrows slightly as I tilted my head to give my words more purchase.

"Touche." She muttered darkly, her frown becoming more pronounced before she ducked her head to run a hand through her hair. It was styled with a light amount of gel today, something I found immensely flattering on her. She didn't look too overdone, perfectly casual with her tousled hair, clean face, tattered jeans and tight dark green tank top. I could even see the outline of her lacy light green bra beneath the stressed cotton. The straps peeked out beneath the thicker, darker color of her top. Forcing myself to look away when my thoughts began to stray, I just squinted against the blocked rays of sun and waited for her to begin her story.

"My father used to beat my mother. That was how I grew up, thinking that it was normal my mom wore too much makeup and flinched every time my father walked into the room. I still can't remember much back then, but I know it didn't get too painful for me until I was thirteen. That was when he started hitting me too and I began to hide at a neighbor's house. We didn't have much while I was growing up and I think that led to some of my father's frustrations. But the family I hid with, the family that tried to protect me from my father's brutality was the Norths. Jason was their youngest son and of course, he became my best friend. I never thought he could make my life worse than it already was."

I could feel the anger churning through me as I fought to stay silent beside her. She had remembered more than I assumed. I'd asked for her to talk to me, to tell me what she remembered. The least I could do was keep my opinions to myself.

"Jason raped me for the very first time when I was sixteen." She went on, her throaty voice giving way to a quiet, bitter laugh as she looked down at her bare feet. "Then I found myself in a new kind of hell. I still can't remember everything about my relationship with him. I don't know what caused us to get married so young, or why I stayed with him when he began to hit me. I guess I still saw him as the boy that told me to never accept that kind of abuse from my father. I guess the saying was true, after all." Another bitter laugh swirled through the air between us and I looked over in time to see her hand disappear into the short strands of her hair.

"What saying?" I muttered and wanted to kick myself for how low my voice was.

She snickered then, a geninue burst of laughter and tilted her head so she could see me from the corner of her eye. "Little girls always grow up to love the boys that remind them of their daddies. I was no exception to that rule. Jason was more of a monster than my own father was."

I frowned then, suddenly when a new thought seized me. "Is that why you were unphased by being born into a family of vampires? Because you're used to monstrocities?"

One moment, Piper was sitting beside me and the next, she was out in front of the porch with her face angrily set on me. "Monstrocity? _Monstrocity_?! Your family is the closest I've ever come to the geninue meaning of the word. I may not remember everything about my former life, and maybe I never will. Maybe the trauma was too bad. But I do remember the important things. I remember how they treated me. I remember how my father looked when he would raise his hand to me, even if the images are murky at best. I remember my mother flinching every time he was mentioned and especially when he came into whatever room she was in. She used to look at me as if it was _my fault_ he was this way. Carlisle may be a vampire but he's nothing like my father. Carlisle spends his existance trying to save lives and that's more than I could _ever_ say of my birth father. As for Esme? She treats me the way every child hopes to be treated by her mother. I finally have brothers and sisters now who treat me as an equal. None of them have any idea what they've given me."

"And me?" I asked so quickly that I couldn't force the words back in time. Nor could I keep myself still any longer. I stood and moved to stand directly in front of her, practically staring down my nose and into her eyes. "I've given you nothing but grief and confusion since you first woke up in that bedroom. What could I _possibly_ have given you in your time as a Cullen?"

Her voice was so soft that if I hadn't had my supernatural hearing, the answer would have been lost to the wind. "You've give me hope."

"Hope?!" I exploded then, my tone angry and indignant as I whirled away from her to stalk back up onto the porch. "There's no such thing left in me, Piper."

"That's where you're wrong." She announced confidently and followed me as I walked back into the house, slamming the door back against the wall supporting it.

She was practically matching me step for step as I crossed the living room and flew upstairs. I couldn't think to speak until I was just inside my bedroom door and had her backed against the wall, her shoulder bouncing quietly against the doorframe. "How can you be so sure? What makes you think there's a single, redeemable cell left in my body?" I asked in a tone that would have chilled anyone, vampire and human alike, within a ten mile radius. I didn't know where all of this anger was coming from, maybe it stemmed from hearing the brutality of her past, but it was all leaking through my carefully cultivated facade. All at the girl standing defiantly in front of me.

She didn't look the least bit upset by the lack of space surrounding her body. There was maybe enough room between us for a slip of paper to reside between our stomachs, but that was even doubtful. My hands came to brace my upper body against the wall, fists connecting with the draped walls behind the crown of her head. In this position, I was acutely aware of just how tiny this girl was against me. But she still had the strength of a newborn vampire. One wrong move and she could have me flat on my back before a clock even thought to tick a second away. "Because you walked away for love. I'm not blind, or stupid Edward. I know what goes on in this house. I don't need your extra ability, or mine to see it. You've tormented yourself with that decision, it's written clearly in your eyes. And this family has tormented themselves with your pain. I'm not saying that's your doing. There's no way you can keep that kind of pain from infecting others. But the fact that you _care _enough to hurt tells me that you're not all bad. You see yourself as this despicable shell of a person, a vampire with no future but that's not what I see. And I'm sorry but nothing you can say or do will ever prove me otherwise."

A million different thoughts appeared on the tip of my tongue right then. All desperate to escape in hopes of unleashing some pain on the tiny girl before me. I _did_ _not want_ this girl thinking of me like this. I didn't want her to see me as anything other than someone she should avoid. She'd been through so much pain and loss in the past, some of which she didn't even _know_ about! As much as I sometimes thought about having her in my life the way I'd had Bella, I still couldn't indulge those thoughts. I couldn't let myself think about her in that way. The reasons were piling up as the days stretched into the months she'd been with our family. I could not, _would not_ let her add my name to that list of people that'd tried to break her. That was probably the biggest reason now, but always overshadowed by one that stung deeper than anything else I'd ever felt. She simply was not Isabella Marie Swan. No matter how hard I tried, that was just one fact I could not get around.


	17. Chapter 17

_Stephenie Meyer's the genius, I'm just playing in her sandbox._

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**CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:**

"Are you absolutely sure you want to do this?" Piper asked for what felt like the thousandth time.

It had actually been Emmett's idea to try and teach her some basic defenses against other vampires. While we weren't known for attacking each other, it was still a minimal possibility. One I knew of all too well thanks to Bella's time in my life. Even though she was nowhere near as vulnerable and soft as Bella had been, I couldn't think of a plausible reason to keep Piper defenseless against a physical attack. Her background had helped some in deciding that she needed to protect herself. Even though her heart no longer beat and she had more strength than any other member of our family, the general consesus was that she'd gone way too long without self-defense.

I just couldn't understand why _I_ was the one teaching her, not Emmett.

He had gone out earlier in the day with the others to hunt. It kept his tolerance to human blood up and he was always easier to be around when he was full and happy. It was the simple things in life that appeased Emmett Cullen.

"I'm absolutely sure. Now just do as I say." I announced, frowning more at the small slip of irritation in my voice. If she asked that question one more time, I was attacking without warning.

She frowned too then silence fell. She'd had some basic techniques already explained to her, now we just needed to put those into action. Slipping into a crouch, I stayed still for about a split second before I launched myself at her. Piper looked completely unaware until my arm was close enough for her to grab. She twisted in a half-turn, pulling my arm against her. I'd gained enough purchase with my feet that I didn't go sailing over her back. The only thing she'd managed to accomplish was pulling me up against her back and stopping my assault, taking a couple steps forward in the process.

I stayed pressed against her, my other arm instinctively wrapping around her midsection to keep us from falling over then gently pulled away. She let me go then dropped into her own defensive crouch. "Again." She demanded in a clear and calm tone.

I nodded and paced back several paces so I could make the full-frontal assault needed to help her accomplish the defense she was wanting to master. I launched again and because she was a little more aware this time, she simply dove out of my way. I went sprawling into the grass, my belly sliding against the roughened grass and stopped just a foot from where she'd stopped.

A small peal of laughter filled her throat as I straightened up and smoothed out my clothes. I'd been right in not dressing up for this. The objective was for her to subdue me. I was supposed to be the one getting dirty in this exercise, not her.

"How was that?" She asked once I'd rejoined her in the small clearing near the house. She was thinking that her defense hadn't been the best she could have chosen right then. But it'd done the trick. I hadn't touched her that time.

"It was good." I nodded, hoping it looked encouraging to her and flattened my hands against my hips as I gave her a second to rally herself. If she went into any type of fight feeling uncertain, she would lose no matter how strong she was. "What made you decide to do that?"

"Something Alice said." She answered and shrugged casually, her own fingers disappearing into the front pockets of her worn jeans. A black thermal shirt, one of many she'd accumilated, had been thrown on to complete the ensemble. "She and I were talking and she told me that if you come at me faster than I'm comfortable with, just dive out of the way. It'll give me the second I need to counter."

"Good thinking on her part." I agreed with another small nod of my head. That was Alice's best defense, because of her size. It made sense that she'd passed that on to the second tiniest member of our family.

The training session just seemed to flow on from there. Piper got inventive as I changed my point of attack on her. I wanted to get her used to different kinds of assaults, not just head-on where she could see the assailant coming. It wasn't always like that when a vampire attacked another. She remembered the sole warning I'd given her before starting this mission. She didn't put her arms around me to defend herself once. She remembered that she could crush every bone in my body with a simple squeeze of her arms or grip of her hand. A few of her kicks had landed and I was still feeling them as we pushed on into the twilight hours. The sun was setting quicker than I'd counted on, but that didn't seem to matter.

It wasn't until I'd finally managed to capture her and drive her to the ground that I saw emotional fatigue brewing beneath her exterior.

"You okay?" I asked quietly, suddenly very mindful of how we'd landed after my last launch. She was pinned underneath me with her hands gripping the sides of my pull-over sweatshirt. One leg had even come out during the short flight and curled against my thigh. For a brief moment, I couldn't remind myself that I'd just been trying to attack her. This felt too much like a lover's embrace than one of a predator obtaining his prey.

"Yeah." She nodded and blew out a low breath, giving the only indicator that I'd gotten her. I had only managed in knocking the breath out of her. She glanced down between us and her eyes closed when she noticed how we were laying. Our bodies had never been pressed together this intimately before and the lustful monster consumed my head so suddenly that I was momentarily lost to his power. She was right there, her lips were about three inches from mine. All I had to do was lean down that little distance and I'd be able to feel her lips on mine. I could kiss her and actually savor the brief connection before she threw me off her. Providing that was what she wanted to do. I couldn't tell from her thoughts, which were still open to me but muddled with indecision. She was just as torn right then as I was.

"Piper...." I muttered, only to trail off. Her thoughts suddenly became clear to me right then, snapping into focus when she finally overcame the confusion. There was a part of her that wanted me to kiss her. That same part was thrilling at the sensation of my body tightly pressed against hers. We didn't have to worry about too much weight on her snapping her tiny bones. I wouldn't need to be careful and guarded with her. She could handle any physical advance I made toward her.

But could she handle it mentally? That was what brought me up short. That and a few other things.

Slowly, I rolled off her and fell onto the grass beside her. She exhaled then, slowly and deliberately with her eyes closing again.

"We should...probably be getting back to the house." Her words were so soft, yet forced, that I wasn't sure I would have been able to hear her in any less-heightened state of awareness.

I nodded and opened my eyes to find her on her feet with her back facing me. I frowned mentally at that, but stood up as well. Once debris was dusted from our clothing, returning as much of it as possible to the ground beneath us, I silently began to follow her back to the house. There wasn't much ground to cover, I hadn't wanted to stray too far from the house. But we were covering that space at a slow, human pace instead of vampiric running speed.

"You're a better liar than I thought." Piper finally spoke, her eyes on her feet as we continued to walk back to the house.

I was stunned still then, my eyes wide and focused on her. Her steps faltered for a brief moment then she turned and faced me again. "Why do you say that?"

A small shrug moved her shoulders as she continued to stare at me. There was faint tightness around the corners of her lips, but she looked otherwise unpreturbed by our new discussion. "Because," she started then slowly turned back around to face the house, "for a second there, I almost thought you actually wanted to kiss me."

Before I could say anything, she was off like a shot. I had no choice _but_ to give her the last word as I finally willed my feet to move. I hated how she'd made that confession of sort sound. There was still some part of her that thought I hated her, that I didn't see her in any kind of romantic life. While, for the most part it was true, as I walked back to the house then up to my room, I realized just how big that part of me; the part that wanted her more than anything else on this earth, had grown.

I closed the door behind me before moving to the closet. I didn't want to see how badly my clothes had been wrecked from sliding around on damp grass and still-muddy bare patches of soil. Alice would have a fit if she saw me like this. Peeling the shirt and jeans from my body, I tossed them onto the closet floor then made my boxers join them. If I was going to change, might as well go with all layers.

I just didn't count on the door to my bedroom suddenly opening, with me standing buck naked and oblivous in front of my open closet doors when my visitor rushed into the room.

"Oh." Piper stopped short when she saw me standing in front of the closet, but when her eyes _really_ drank in my appearance, her back turned toward me quickly. "_Oh_! I'm so sorry, I should've knocked. I had no idea you had come up here to...to...."

Even with the emotions from the woods weighing on me, I had to laugh when she began to stammer and fidget in my doorway. The door was still wide open where anyone could walk by and see exactly what she'd just walked in on. "Could you close the door, please?" I asked politely, waiting until she was moving before I pulled a pair of boxers on. She had already seen everything there was to see of me, but I still felt better with the sturdy cotton around my hips and thighs.

"Wow." She breathed almost silently, her back still to me as her thoughts picked up where her simple statement had left off. _How in the world is he still the only one without someone?! Even with everything I know of his past.... This just proves everything I've been thinking all along. It was completely stupid of me to let my guard down, to let that little sliver of hope to grow. Stupid, stupid...._

"Piper?" I asked cautiously, momentarily abandoning dressing further as I came up behind her and gently turned her around to face me. "What were you thinking about just now?"

She frowned when she realized her shield had come down in her surprise to find me naked. "Nothing." She answered automatically, only looking away from me when I raised an eyebrow slightly at her. I didn't need her gift of knowing lies from truth to hear the 'everything' that accompanied her answer.

"You can tell me." I gently prodded and felt my hand slip down her arm slightly as I pulled out of her mind. I was still determined to keep my promise as best I could. But it was just so tempting to pull the answer I sought straight from her thoughts. All she had to do was think of the point I'd unknowingly proven. If she thought that then I wouldn't need to find some way of persuading her. "I'm pretty sure you can now think of me as an open book. After all, you're the first woman aside from my family to ever see me naked. That has to bring people closer on some level."

Piper sighed and let her shoulders slump as she finally looked up at me again, her thoughts nearly shouting at me when she realized I was now only barely dressed. She seemed to hate that I'd just brought that up. It also surprised her, knowing that I didn't go around flaunting or flashing my frozen adolecent body. Her thoughts ran rampant then, providing a nearly perfect ego boost. She seemed to think of my anatomy the same way Bella had always stared. Though Piper was getting more of an eyeful than my former love had achieved. Her perfect mind already had my chest and stomach memorized. She was focusing intently on the shallow indentions in the skin of my torso that stretched across muscle and bone. Her favorite part, which was mentally being shouted at me, was the faint line that curled against my hipbone and dipped into the waistband of my boxers. "You're perfect." She muttered after a long and strained pause. "_Too_ perfect. I'll admit that I've sometimes wondered about...you, but I never thought I'd actually _see_ you like this."

"You just accidentally walked in on me." I announced, as if that was the most natural thing in the world to do. After all, she hadn't known that I was in the process of redressing when she stormed into the room. She hadn't set out to see if she could catch me naked. That had only been one other person and, well, I was refusing to think of her right then. "It's not a big deal."

"If you say so." Her voice didn't raise much higher then her face abruptly shut down. The mental shield slammed down just a half-second later, creating an impenitrable barrier between us. She wasn't going to talk to me anymore tonight, not about what she'd seen and the thoughts it had created. "I just wanted to come in and see when you wanted to practice again. I'll knock next time." She nodded and managed a weak smile up at me before sliding her arm from my grip. Because it was loose, she was able and before I was fully aware of it, I was alone in my room yet again.

Like I'd said before, the surprises just kept coming whenever Piper Cullen was near me. I was just biding my time until those surprises began to drive me absolutely crazy.


	18. Chapter 18

_**AUTHOR'S NOTE: **__Two more new chapters this time! I really hope you guys are enjoying the twists and turns this story is taking. Thanks so much for sticking by and continuing to read what I've written. Any and all imput is more than welcome._

_Stephenie Meyer's the genius, I'm just playing in her sandbox. Please review, they keep me inspired!_

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**CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:**

The amusement of Piper bursting in on me while changing hadn't disipated in the two days since the incident. I was still carrying it with me as I traveled calmly through the hospital Carlisle worked at. Yet another surprise visit, reminding me of the last time I'd come to check in and see what he was up to seemed to make the small smile on my face feel a little more geninue.

But when I reached the closed door of my father's office, that smile faded rapidly into the deepest of frowns. My father wasn't alone. He had a visitor and this person was very much a human. Whoever it was didn't smell entirely appealing to me, I had no trouble swallowing the small collection of venom as I raised my hand to knock politely on the door. I suddenly found myself not caring what I was interrupting or who I was about to encounter. For all I knew, it could very well have been someone on staff.

It wasn't until I walzed into the room and stopped at Carlisle's desk that I realize how very wrong I was. Of course this person didn't smell enticing to me, too much hatred and violence clung to his scent. I now wanted to drain him for an entirely different reason. I needed no introduction to know that I was going to meet Jason North for the very first time.

"Jason," My father started, always one for proper introductions, and glided around the desk to clap a hand reassuringly on my shoulder and gestured to the boy with his other arm. "This is my son, Edward. Edward, this is the young man I mentioned last night during dinner."

"The one looking for his missing wife." I admitted a little too sharply for it to be normal. But I made no move to shake his hand. I couldn't let myself get too close to this kid, not the way I was feeling. I didn't want to just drain him anymore, I wanted to rip his throat out and hold his still-beating heart in my hand. The amount of violence surrounding my thoughts would have stunned me in any other situation. But not right then. This person deserved nothing less than the monster I kept so tightly reigned in. The same monster my father had transformed Jason's wife into.

I stepped back once the conversation resumed between Carlisle and Jason, finding mild amusement as I mentally ran through the senario of Piper meeting up with this man now. She was no longer a victim, held powerless beneath his thumb. She could crush him easily and a million different possible ways flooded my mind. Through my amusement, I was still conscious of what was going on around me. And the boy's thoughts. Now was not the time for me to relax and possibly let something vital slip through the cracks.

"I'm afraid my answer is still the same as it was the last time you visited." Carlisle's voice brought me back to the present as he eased into the chair behind his desk. Jason remained standing and I leaned against the wall behind me, as casually as I could considering I was still having to restain myself.

"There has to have been someone here fitting her description." Jason rushed on, playing the bereved husband that was beside himself with worry and anxiety. He was no older than Piper had been. There was maybe only a year or two difference between their ages. I wondered idly if he'd needed parental permission when he and Piper married. Their ages at the time of their nuptuals was still a mystery, one I wanted to solve. I was suddenly filled with the intense determination and desire to take some sort of answers back home to the newest Cullen. Part of me wanted to prove to her that she wasn't alone in trying to unravel her human life. "We were vacationing here when she suddenly disappeared. Her parents back home are worrying themselves sick. They can't believe that she's just disappeared into thin air."

Into thin air, my left foot. The longer I heard him talk, the more irritated I became. It was only Carlisle's calming mental voice that held me in check.

_You can't, Edward. Killing him solves nothing and will probably hurt Piper in some way. She did love him once upon a time._

I swallowed back a snort of laughter just in time, but pushed carefully away from the wall to inject myself into their conversation. Maybe this would distract me too. "How did she disappear?" I asked quietly, priding myself on how calm and detached my voice sounded.

The boy's eyes flashed to meet mine for a brief second. And that was enough. I had the entire truth he was about to hide from Carlisle. All from his mind. "Like I said, we were just visiting. Piper wanted some time away from Georgia, where we're originally from. She's never been above the Mason-Dixon line so I figured this was as good a place as any. She wanted to go for a walk, by herself, and that was the last time I saw her."

Right. Almost as soon as he looked away from me, I connected my gaze with Carlisle and rolled my eyes. That had always been our silent way of me telling him that this guy was BSing us to the max. Piper hadn't disappeared during a walk and we both knew it, even without the silent look.

"This is a very large hospital, Jason." Carlisle struck the conversation up again, forcing the boy to give him his undivided attention as I dove into his mind once more. At least now I could tell Piper where she'd come from. She'd spent her entire life in the small town of Valdosta, Georgia. She was Southern, just like Alice and Jasper. That was probably only one of many reasons why they got along so well. They had a history in common, even though Alice only remembered her Mississippi roots through History books and stories from Jasper's time as a Confederate soldier from Texas. "I wish I could personally see each and every patient that comes in here, but I cannot. Would you happen to have a picture of your bride? Maybe that would give me a more clear picture of the girl you're wanting me to recognize."

Jason's thoughts shifted so suddenly that I almost missed the secret he was hiding the deepest. The exact reason Piper had left Georgia for New Hampshire. She hadn't been alone when she came up here.

The intensity of my discovery caused me to draw in a shaky breath as I winced away from the boy. Carlisle was quicker than Jason, reaching my side before the boy had begun to turn to face me yet again.

"What?" He asked in a voice so low that it wouldn't carry to the human's ears.

"Don't let him come back with a photograph." I muttered just as quietly, desperately wanting to press my hands against my temples as my body curled slightly under the new addition of emotional weight. "He doesn't have one on him now but trust me, you won't want to see it. I'll tell you why at home."

He nodded, his eyes tight but trusting. I'd never steered Carlisle wrong in all the time we'd been companions. His hand clapped against the skin between my shoulderblades again then he was back to the caring doctor. "You'll have to excuse Edward," He spoke over his shoulder, shielding me from the boy's view before he nudged me toward the door. "I'll see you at home. You should lie down and rest if that headache is getting as bad as I think it might be."

Oh how I loved my creator for thinking on his feet. In my fit of surprise, I hadn't even tried to figure out how I would be able to get out of the office unnoticed. I nodded curtly, squinting against the overhead light before striding out of the room. I was probably a bit too fast to be convincing, but I didn't care. The human, using the term loosely, was vile in almost every single sense of the word. I had never been so disgusted by another person's thoughts than I was right then. He was the exact type of human I used to hunt down for sustinance. He would have fit in perfectly with the rapists and murderers I'd killed during my time away from Carlisle and his adopted way of life. If I'd still been that vampire, I would have gladly drained him and celebrated later that there was one less waste of skin on this earth.

The sound of laughter greeted me when I finally reached the house. Inside, I found Piper and Alice zipping around on brand new rollerblades. The ground was still too muddy for this activity to be outdoors and of course, Esme was following behind them. The scowl on her face was only superficial as she shook her head at the laughing girls. "They're marking up my floor faster than I can clean it!" She laughed happily, but when her eyes settled on my face, all traces of humor quickly faded.

"Edward? What's wrong?"

"I went to see Carlisle." I admitted, feeling the invisible weight of my secret press even harder against my chest. The girls rolled back into the room and Piper laughed when she overextended one leg and fell squarely on her butt.

"I told you about the brakes, Alice!" She laughed, only pretending to wince as she reached behind her to rub the nonexistant soreness in her back. But like Esme, as soon as she saw me, she quickly sombered up. "What's up?"

Alice gracefully fell to take her skates off, already having some sort of an idea about the scene I'd walked in on at the hospital. "I completely forgot you were going to see Carlisle. Did he have someone with him after all?"

I nodded as the tension grew thicker around the four of us. All three of the women were staring intently at me now that Alice's vision had been brought into the conversation. "I met Jason North this morning."

There was no mistaking the way Piper flinched at the name and looked down at her feet so she could free them from the bulky skates. She was trying so hard to remain detached from the thoughts Jason's name stirred up in her mind. This wasn't a conversation I particularly wanted to have with Alice and Esme listening in and she seemed to know that. "I'll be right back." She muttered and darted upstairs to stow her new gift from Alice and Jasper, returning moments later with proper footwear.

Once I'd promised that they would be filled in later, I wanted to tell Piper this first, Alice and Esme let us leave the house together. The tension seemed to follow us as we walked outside, soon becoming lost in the tangle of trees surrounding the property.

"Was he still breathing when you left?" She joked, a mangled smile appearing on her face as she stopped then turned to face me. I had her undivided attention, something I'd captured inside the house once his name had slipped past my lips.

"Yes." I answered sharply, wincing when the tone bounced back onto me. I wasn't supposed to be telling her like this. I wasn't supposed to sound like I somehow blamed her for my encounter with her estranged lover. That was how I was choosing to think of this. He was not this girl's husband, she was way too good for him. But I did have to admit that it still stung to think of him as her lover. The stubborn, jealous monster in my head was becoming too difficult to ignore. "But only because of Carlisle. Piper, I can't hide my distain for him."

"I know." She sighed and raked a hand across her forehead, pushing deep red locks back with her actions before they fell back into a messy pattern against her pale skin.

"No." I broke in suddenly and lightly gripped her arms. My knees bent on their own accord to bring me closer to her height. "You're misunderstanding me. I've left our family only once, and it was about ten years after I became a vampire. I need you to know this, why I'm not sure. But I _need_ you to understand why it was so difficult for me to leave this person breathing."

"Okay." She replied in a breathless whisper, her darkening eyes wide as she stared helplessly up at me. I felt the faint pressure of her hands on my sides, her way of keeping herself upright. It wasn't needed, but if I could provide her at least some sort of comfort, I wasn't going to deny her that. Not with the secret I had to share with her. "You can tell me anything, you know that."

I sighed then and bowed my head slightly before I straightened back up to my full height. Her hands followed my movements, causing my shirt to ride slightly up my body as we adjusted. "I wasn't entirely sold on Carlisle's way of life. I very much consider it a teenager's act of rebellion, what I did. I lost track of how much time I spent away from Carlisle's watchful existance. But in that time, I did horrific things. I embraced the monster I'd become to the fullest degree. I don't blame you if you hate me after what I'm about to tell you. It took me a long time to make peace with what I've done. But I've murdered people, Piper. I've had human blood cross my lips countless times. But not a single one of them were innocent. I never took an innocent life if I could possibly help it."

"What were they like then?" She frowned up at me, the expression on her face tugging at my stone heart more than anything she could have said right then. "You're confusing me, Edward. I know you don't like him but...why?"

"Piper, the people I killed...the humans I drained to maintain myself were very much like Jason North. They were rapists and murderers, molesters and abusive human beings. I took the law into my own hands with these people and I very nearly did the same with him. He lied to Carlisle's face about your disappearance, as well as a few other things, and I wanted to rip his throat out and bleed him dry on the spot."

I felt the chill that rocked through her tiny body as she finally broke eyecontact with me. Here it was. She was finally seeing me the way I'd been hoping for all along. The desire had been much stronger in the beginning, but now that I felt I was finally achieving my goal, it hurt just as much as the pain I was about to inflict on this girl. It was a never-ending occurance for her. Pain was never going to fully leave her life, no matter how drastically she changed.

"What did he lie about?" She asked in a soft whisper. She paced back from me slightly, her arms curling tight against her chest as she continued to stare at her feet.

"He told us that you were vacationing here. You wanted to see what the Northern states had to offer so he brought you up here to see that. You're originally from Valdosta, Georgia. But that wasn't the exact sequence of events. It's only because he was thinking about it all very clearly that I learned the truth. I have no remorse for picking around in his head. I'd do it again, gladly, if it meant that my family is safe. Of course, that includes you."

A wave of shock flittered across her face and she finally looked up at me. Her eyes were still wide, but she seemed to tuck that little tidbit away for mental examination later on. Now, she only waved her hand slightly to indicate she was ready to hear the real story. So I plunged in head-first, leaving out no details. "You tried to leave him. I will tell you why in a moment, if you want to hear it. But please, let me get this out first. It's going to hurt you and I'm so very sorry for this. But you need to know, you have to know exactly how things unfolded. You came up here in hopes that he would never look for you here. I only know what you told him when he finally tracked you here. He was angry, of course. You know that you've been raped before, but he raped you again that night. It was the precursor to the beating you sustained at his hands. He didn't plan on you needing medical attention. He just figured that he could hurt you enough that it would be easy to bring you back to Valdosta. But he went too far, you didn't get up once he'd thrown you against the wall and caused you to bounce against a nearby dresser. In order to keep up appearances, so that he had what he would need to make his story plausible, he dropped you off outside the ER. He fully expected you to die out there, he didn't want anyone to find you so that he could go back to Valdosta with...with...."

Her eyes, which didn't stray an inch from mine as I recounted her horrifying last moments of human consciousness, grew slightly wider when she picked up on my voice falter. "With what?" She blurted out suddenly. "Edward." She was nearly begging now and closed the distance between us to grip fists full of my shirt. This girl, the beautiful vampire standing in front of me looked desperate. I could tell she was on the verge of making a breakthrough of her own. The events I'd just recounted echoed weakly through her mind as she worked toward the last key piece of history I had for her.

I couldn't put it off any longer. The pain I abruptly felt was about to crush me, force me to my knees in front of her. "You were trying to divorce him, Piper. You were taking your daughter away from him and he couldn't let you do that."


	19. Chapter 19

_**AUTHOR'S NOTE: **__I apologize now for the length of this chapter. I got a little carried away._

_Stephenie Meyer's the genius, I'm just playing in her sandbox. Please review, they keep me inspired!_

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**CHAPTER NINETEEN:**

The house was surprisingly quiet. For a house full of vampires that required no sleep, I was used to hearing noise at all hours of the day and night. One glance at the clock nestled on the table beside my couch told me that it was nearly four am. Tonight just seemed to be a peaceful and relaxing kind of night. A stark contrast to how the daylight hours had ended.

When Carlisle returned home from work, the rest of the family was filled in on just what Piper had left behind to join our family. The reactions and emotions swirled so violently that Jasper had been forced to actually leave the house. It was extremely difficult to control this kind of bombshell among our family members.

That was probably the reason why everything was now so calm in the lower levels of the house. Everyone was thinking the same thing I was, thoughts I easily picked from their minds as they spread throughout the house. They all wanted to give Piper some space. She'd been given a lot to deal with and I couldn't help wondering how she was coping with all of this. But unless she came and talked to me about it, I had no way of knowing. Her thoughts were completely closed off. She didn't even want Jasper around her, fearing her feelings would betray her. She didn't want any of us to know the depth of her suffering, she refused to.

So it was a surprise when I lifted my head and found a feminine outline in my open bedroom door. I'd stretched out on the couch to do some reading but after a while, the words just started to blend together. The book was abandoned and I just lay there, letting random thoughts swirl through my head as music kept the silence at bay.

The figure in my doorway shifted slightly and I knew instantly that the visitor was Piper. She didn't know whether or not she wanted to come inside.

"You okay?" I asked quietly, almost afraid that by speaking, I would ruin the atmosphere of the entire house.

Her shadow bounced slightly against the floor as she nodded then came inside and closed the door gently behind her. The moon streaming in through the glass wall illuminated her beautifully. She'd showered to get rid of any traces of hair gel and her body was adorned in the pink and gray pajama set she always wore around the house when she didn't feel like dressing properly. I wasn't sure what she'd been up to before joining me in my room, but it must have entailed physical exertion. The hem of her tank top was uneven against her navel, revealing smooth patches of skin in random spots. Of course, her pants hung low on her frame, the waistband stretching just along the skin below her hipbones. I couldn't help but notice that she had the ability to look both innocent and sexy at the same time.

"I'm not bothering you, am I?" She asked in her throaty voice, the tempo lowered to match mine as she slowly approached the wide leather couch.

Shaking my head, I pulled my arm from behind my head and pushed my legs against the back of the couch so she would have some room if she wanted to sit down. "I was just laying here thinking."

"Can I ask what you're thinking about?"

I contemplated her question for a moment, wondering if it would be better to lie or just tell her the truth. After the past few days, I wasn't sure just how much more of the 'truth' she could bare before she all-out cracked. But then I remembered her ability to catch me in a lie. "You, actually." I finally admitted, priding myself on keeping a calm expression on my face.

Piper nodded and trapped her lower lip between her teeth as she carefully perched on the edge of the couch. There was maybe a half-inch between her hips and my legs, something I forced myself to notice only in passing. I had no idea why she had come to talk to me, instead of someone else in the house. Providing that was even what she had in mind, I'd figured that she would have gone to one of the girls for this. Not me. Not the one person she thought hated her more than anything else in the world. "Why're you thinking about me? I mean, come on." She trailed off, her face deadpanning as the mood suddenly shifted around her. "I know I've made things more interesting around here but that's just kinda creepy! You could be imagining my death for all I know."

A light, short laugh expelled from my throat before I could swallow it back. I don't know how she did it, but I could actually feel some of the tension drain from the room. "I wouldn't be imagining your death. There's more fun in trial and error."

Piper laughed at that, her head tilting back slightly as she looked up at the ceiling. A random burst of relief shot through me as she took my words in stride. Even with everything that'd been going on in the past few days, her sense of humor hadn't been affected in the least. "Okay," She said after a moment's laughter and raised an eyebrow slightly. "Seriously now, why're you thinking about me?"

I shrugged and raised up a little, resting back against the armrest and curled my arms across my chest. I was still dressed from going to the hospital and the buttons rankled slightly beneath my arms. But Piper looked strangely at ease as she curled her leg underneath her, shifting so she was fully facing me. It made her scoot further back on the couch and her hips were now touching my crossed calves. I had to fight back the urge to lightly grab her and pull her to lay beside me as we talked. For one thing, I didn't know quite how she would recieve that gesture and another, I didn't want to risk the relaxed atmosphere to become charged yet again with tension. "Just realizing that you haven't really been able to relax much since you last woke up. You've had a lot to deal with in the past five months."

"Yeah," She nodded with a quiet sigh and looked down to pick at the inside hem of her pant leg. Of course, my eyes followed and I swallowed thickly as I imagined the smooth skin beneath the checkered fabric. What was wrong with me? My hormones were becoming entirely way too charged for me to remember all the reasons I was holding her at a distance. "But in a way, I'm kind of relieved by it all too. I finally know more about myself. Or at least," She shrugged unevenly and looked up at me again. "who I used to be."

"I don't think you've changed much. But then again, I never met you in your human form. You were unconscious until you woke up as you are now."

"I doubt you would have looked at me twice." She revealed with a small laugh then sighed as she ran her hand over the back of her head. "I used to wear my hair long. It reached my waist before my last haircut. Which, of course, Jason hated. So he gave me his own haircut." Piper frowned then and gestured at the tousled array of dark red hair.

"He didn't want you to appear attractive to anyone else." I surmised with a small nod of my head. It was an effort in vain on Jason's part. He'd just failed horribly. Nothing he could do, short of permanantly marring her skin, would have decreased her beauty.

"Exactly." She nodded and bit down on her bottom lip again. "I think that was why he always went for my face whenever we fought. I remember giving back just as much as I recieved." She revealed with a quiet laugh and dipped her chin toward her chest a little more. "It makes me feel better to know that now. I didn't just stand there and take it."

"You couldn't _not_ fight back." I announced quietly, yet suddenly and sat up fully. There was really no hesitation at all as I covered her tiny hand with my own, marveling in her size all over again. "I'm willing to bet that's something that transferred over from one life to another. You've never struck me as the type to just let people walk all over you."

"What was it like?" She asked and looked up at me with an expression that nearly knocked me breathless. She was so open and vulnerable right then, her angelic features straining as she tried to mentally connect more pieces. "Seeing me like that? I...I don't know if it's going to sound weird or not, but when I woke up here, I had the strangest feeling that I'd heard your voice before. Only it didn't sound the same."

I couldn't help the small smile that transformed my lips at her confession. I still hadn't told anyone of the trips I used to take to the hospital, once she'd been put in a private room. Alice knew about them, of course, but she had gratefully agreed to keep it to herself. I knew she would have told Jasper but I found myself not minding that much. Maybe I was finally moving on, as my family hoped I would. Granted, it wasn't quite the way they wanted, but any sort of progress as good progress. Vampires weren't exactly known for change. "I used to visit you right after you became Carlisle's patient. A nurse suggested I should try talking to you. It's apparently a proven fact that talking to comatose patients sometimes help awaken them. So I tried it."

"Why?" Out of the entire confession I'd just made, it seemed she was only allowing herself to comment on the last part of it. "Why did you come see me and why did you decide to talk to me?"

I sighed heavily and slouched back into my previous position. My eyes fixed on the ceiling above our head as the back of my skull contorted the armrest beneath the weight. My arms once again became locked against my chest. "You won't like the answer, Piper."

"I know." She sighed and closed her eyes briefly before she shifted once again in her seat. "Tell me anyway. Please don't try and spare my feelings."

"I won't." I agreed with a slight incline of my head. Had I still been human, I was sure I would've been holding my breath as I gathered my thoughts together. "I'll admit that when Carlisle first started thinking about you, I tried to block it out." As soon as I said it, I felt the dire need to apologize. But I'd already warned her that answering her question was going to hurt her. So I pushed on before I could lose my nerve. "I didn't want to see you through anyone's thoughts. Carlisle couldn't really hide his curiosity about you though and I saw everything in his mind. He was so shaken up by how you looked when you were brought into the Emergency Room. I can still recall how you looked, bruised and broken on a gurney."

Piper flinched then and drew in a shaky breath. I was suddenly grateful she didn't have the memories I did to carry around with her. She'd looked so bad before her transformation, I wasn't entirely sure how she would have been able to handle the visible damage of her attack.

"I'll stop if you don't want to hear anymore."

Her eyes jerked up to meet mine so quickly that I shifted uncomfortably in my spot. "No." She stated after a moment and shook her head slowly as she scooted closer toward my stomach and uncertainly laid a hand on my exposed forearm. "Please, go on. I want to know why you detested me so much in the beginning."

"You reminded me of everything I'd been trying so hard to run from." I admitted with absolute honesty. There was no lying to her and I strangely found myself not wanting to hide anything from her anymore. I'd failed in the one area I'd sworn to succeed. I cared about her too much now. That much was evident by taking this little trip down memory lane. "I didn't want to care about you, Piper. I didn't want to know anything about you, who you were, what had happened to you. I didn't want you to be part of our family because I knew...."

"You knew?" She picked up immediately where I'd trailed off and raised an eyebrow slightly. It was almost as if she was silently begging me to continue.

"I'd eventually begin to care about you." I admitted in a gruff voice. I hated the emotions she stirred in me. Granted, the internal hatred wasn't nearly as intense now as it had once been, but it was still there. "I grew too curious to stay away. Carlisle was consumed with the mystery you presented. No one knew your name, no one knew who had dropped you off or where you'd come from. So I went to see you, wanting to find out for myself why you were affecting my family the way you were. You'd just been put in a private room when I finally gathered the courage to go. I needed to see if you were actually real, maybe I was hoping that you weren't as interesting as I figured you would be. But I was wrong. As soon as I saw you, I understood why no one could stop thinking about you. Despite everything, despite the extensive bruising and bandages...in spite of the fact that you'd obviously been victimized in every single way, I couldn't leave the room. I didn't want you to be alone, even though I still despised the hold you unconsciously had on my family. I began talking to you during my second visit. I don't really know what propelled me to do so, I guess I just wanted you to know that you weren't alone. You had someone there that wanted you to wake up and regain your life. Even if that meant I was the one to do it. I'll admit that I was extremely selfish in my actions. I wanted you to wake up in hopes of it somehow releasing my family from the mystery. Then Carlisle decided to bring you home. You weren't getting any better, there was no hope of you waking up from your coma."

"That was when Carlisle decided to change me." She admitted in quiet wonder. "Did he say why? Did he know about my...my family?"

It stung that she couldn't bring herself to mention her family specifically. I knew she wasn't referring to Jason. As far as she was concerned, he was someone she had long ago wanted to live without. But the tiny life she'd created with him, the still-unknown little girl that was her daughter was a concept she just could not wrap her head around. "No." I answered as gently as I could, sitting up once again as I took her hand into mine. It felt strange to suddenly give in to a simple desire. I'd been wanting to reach out and touch her for so long, to try and provide some physical comfort that it was unnerving to finally indulge myself. If I wasn't careful, I knew things could escalate if we both allowed it. "None of us knew about your past. Piper, we didn't even know what color your eyes were before you became a vampire. Carlisle couldn't let you die, it's not in his nature to allow something like that. There was no way of asking your imput on the decision so he did what he thought was best. He gave you the same second chance that we all recieved. It's not something he decided on lightly. He struggled with himself the entire time you were unconsicous. He agonized over how his decision would affect you. You didn't wake up as quickly as you should have once the venom had killed your system and brought you over. He worried if he'd made things worse for you."

"And he worried about my reaction." When I nodded, she sighed then and unconsciously tightened her hand around mine. Somehow, through my omission, our fingers had laced together seamlessly and the embrace looked very much like two lovers trying to console each other as the truth came out. The monster in my head that craved her roared in delight and victory. I'd given him too much power already. "I honestly didn't know what was going on when I woke up. All I knew was that I couldn't feel my heart beating anymore and it scared me. But then, I saw you...."

"You were very surprised by my presence in the room." I allowed with a small smile.

Her face mirrored mine for a brief second before grief clouded her angelic features. "I wasn't surprised by your presence, Edward. I was...." She forced herself to stop then and pulled her hand from mine as she climbed to her feet.

"You what?" I asked bluntly, even moving to follow her as she started for the door.

"Don't." Piper shook her head and slowly turned around to face me. "It won't do any good for me to finish that statement."

I frowned then and shoved my hands into the pockets of my khakis. I wanted to touch her again, to hold her hand and pull her up against me in a hug. Now that I'd allowed myself to act on one gesture, my body craved more. It wanted as much of her as she was willing to give. "Why won't it? Piper, I think it's a little late for us to start keeping secrets from each other."

"We've never stopped though." She announced so suddenly that my impulses were easily reigned back in. "We may have told each other things, but there's...I can feel it, there's this big issue that we're just skirting around. I can't ignore it, it's been there from the moment I woke up downstairs. I'm keeping a secret from you and I know you're keeping one from me. One that won't do us any good to share with each other. So why ask that? Why should I stand here and hurt you then ask you to return the favor? It's better to just keep ignoring it."

"But you just said so yourself, you can't ignore it anymore." I admitted quickly and reached out to grab her arm before I could stop myself. I had no idea why I was pushing this issue as much as I was. I couldn't pluck her secret from her mind, no matter how badly I suddenly wanted to try. It was an unfair advantage, forcing her to reveal herself to me if I wasn't willing to do so myself. But I needed to know, I _had_ to know what she was wanting to say, but wouldn't let herself admit. "Just tell me, Piper. Don't you think that if we address it, maybe we can move on?"

She shook her head so violently that hair sprayed across her forehead and ears in an angry display of red. Her hair would never cover her ears again, she was forever going to look as she did now and I was no longer immune to her appearance. "You wanna know?" She asked and looked up at me with her dark eyes blazing in barely-concealed anger. "Fine." She huffed the simple word out then squared her shoulders. I could feel the surprise spread across my face when she didn't pull her arm from my grasp. "From the moment I first saw you, I've never felt scared or fearful of you. I've never worried about you hurting me like everyone else has. Even before I remembered my past, I've never seen you as the monster you've tried to create for me. I know that you're constantly pushing me away and it hurts. It hurts more than anything I've ever experienced. In this life and my past one. I wish I could break through the walls you hold around yourself but I've given up on that now. I know you'll never feel about me the way I've started feeling about you. And for the most part, I'm okay with that. I know that I should be thinking about how to handle Jason and there's a part of my brain that's worrying endlessly about my...daughter. But you consume so many of my thoughts that it's nearly impossible for me to fully escape you. I feel this...this pull toward you that I've never felt with anyone else before. But I know now that it's only one-sided. I'm not Bella. I'm not the girl you love and I never will be. So why should I stand here and subject myself to that kind of torture? There's not going to be room for anyone else in your heart until you stop tormenting yourself with your decision to leave her. I can't compete with someone I've never met, Edward. I can't be _her_, though there is a part of me that wishes I could."

"Piper...." I started, only to have my voice give out. What could I possibly say to that? She saw through me so much easier than Bella Swan had been able to. Maybe that was because we were on more equal footing than I'd ever been able to gain with the tiny brunette that had awaken the human in me.

"No." She shook her head again with a little less force than before. She finally pulled her arm from my grasp then and sighed as her shoulders slumped. "She's moved on. She's taken the gift you've given her and is obviously making the best of it that she can. I won't say that I know how that feels, but I can assume she's never going to love this boy the same way she loved you. But it's over. She's _gone_. You can't take what you've done back, you'll never be able to. Just like she can't undo what she's done. I don't know why you're still holding on to her the way you are, I don't understand that kind of love and devotion. But can you honestly stand there and tell me that you don't see yourself with anyone but her? Is your love for her still so absolute and unshakable that you can't progress beyond her? Are you still in love with her, or are you just in love with the memory of what you had with her?"

I had no answers. For the first time in my very long life, I didn't know what to say. I had an idea of how to react, but that was just on the physical level. Piper had raised so many valid questions that her words infiltrated every single thought and molecule in my mind and heart. Was she right? Was I really just in love with the memory of my time in Bella Swan's life?


	20. Chapter 20

_**AUTHOR'S NOTE: **__Yet another chapter! Gotta warn you guys, this is the chapter were the M warning is being put into affect for the first time. I won't say why, that'll just ruin the fun! Now here is where I need your help as readers; I've been thinking very seriously about wrapping this story up then starting on a sequel from Piper's point of view. There's still a lot that needs to be wrapped up, but there are just some things I would love to tell through Piper's eyes since all of this so far as been through Edward's. But here's what I'm struggling with, is that something you guys would want to read? Should I do that or should I just continue the story on from Edward's point of view? Please, __**please**__ let me know what you guys think VIA review cause, yeah, I'm still completely lost on PMs and how to find/send them._

_Thanks so much again for reading, even if you don't review. Stephenie Meyer's the genius, I'm just playing in her sandbox._

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**CHAPTER TWENTY:**

It's one thing to know you're comparing one person to another. It's entirely different to be called out on it.

Piper had only been gone for maybe fifteen minutes, but yet her words were still bouncing painfully around in my head. How was it possible that she saw through me as clearly as she did? I'd been trying to keep so much hidden from her, there were so many things that I just did not want her to know about. But yet, she had caught on to every single thing. The thing that had suprised me the most was her willingness to call me out on everything. I wasn't entirely sure of what to do now, but I was proud of her for that. Jason North hadn't succeeded in breaking her in the worst possible way. She'd been able to escape him before he completely shattered her spirit.

My body began to fidget before the actions registered mentally. Should I go after Piper and finish our conversation? What could I possibly tell her if I did? That I wasn't comparing her to Bella? I had never once expected this girl to fill the void Bella Swan had left behind. More than that, I'd never wanted her to. She was right, she wasn't Bella. There was no comparison between the two girls. But was it fair for me to prove that point? What could we possibly gain in further dissecting this to the smallest possible degree?

Despite my reservations and internal struggle, I got up and walked the short distance to her bedroom. I had just barely made it to the door when I heard the sounds inside. Piper had retreated and began a hobby I was guilty of myself. The music floating from inside her room was heartbreaking, especially since I had no idea what she was listening to and had never heard the song. But when she began to sing along quietly with the other feminine voice, the invisible tugs to my dead heart intensified.

"_I should have held on to my pride, I should have never let you lie. I guess you got what you deserved. I guess I should've been more like her._" Her soft, harmonious voice drifted out and seemed to pull me even closer to the door. Peeking just around the beige wooden frame, I winced at the scene that greeted me. Piper was curled up on her bed, knees drawn tightly to her chest as she stared out the glass wall that ran straight down the side of her bed. The words she was quietly singing, combined with the look on her face just felt like too much to take in at once. I wasn't entirely in control of myself as I burst into the room and roughly pulled her off the bed.

The song continued, but I didn't hear it. The only sound that invaded my ears was the soft squeak Piper emitted as I pulled her to her feet. Permitting myself the briefest of glimpses into her eyes, my other hand gripped her waist as I bent and pressed my lips to hers. I wasn't being gentle with her, not in any logical sense. The desires and urges I'd been pushing into the deep recesses of my mind came rushing up to the surface and I was momentarily lost in the tidal wave. I could feel the hesitation in her lips, but I staggered a little when she responded. Aggressively. Her arms wound tightly around my neck as her smooth lips glided against mine. There was no give in her lips, like there had been with Bella. Even though she was soft and vulnerable in her own way, there wasn't a crushing, nagging voice in the back of my head reminding me that I could break her with one wrong move. I didn't have to keep myself so guarded against Piper out of fear of hurting her or having a random stream of venom flow into her system. I could kiss her the way I'd always wanted to kiss Bella, with no restraint.

A quiet sigh filled my throat as the kiss deepened. A chill shot down my spine when her lips parted against mine, allowing me the access I was craving most. I wanted to taste her, to have the heavenly scent that could only be Piper to consume my senses. I suddenly became one with the lustful monster that filled my head so often these days. Our movements were blinding quick as I easily picked her up off the floor, her legs wrapping around my hips tightly then I staggered toward the bed. Neither of us were thinking clearly. Or rather, thinking at all. Even though I could see clearly into her mind, there was no distraction. She was thinking the exact same thing I was, which was a relief I hadn't been expecting to feel.

The depressing song I'd walked in on ended as I pulled her away from me and tossed her onto the bed. My body followed suit just seconds later and I sighed into her throat as her fingers dipped beneath the hem of my shirt. I'd wondered how it would feel to have her fingers on my bare skin, but I didn't expect the electrifying heat that ignited beneath her touch. I could feel her grow braver beneath me as her hands moved higher, bringing my shirt up toward my ribs as I ran dry kisses along her jaw, then down the curve of her neck.

"Edward." She sighed then leaned up to clamp her mouth on my collarbone. I groaned in response, my muscles locking down as she abandoned her exploration of my back to work on the line of buttons holding the shirt to my body. It was a struggle to pull my upper body off hers, but as soon as I did, the shirt was ripped open and swiftly pushed down my arms. I had to chuckle at her impatience, but I obligingly tossed the shirt aside and covered her with my body once more.

My lips dipped lower this time, my head nearly dizzy with the intoxication of her smooth skin and sweet scent. I didn't feel any hesitation in my joints as I slid my hand down her side then let it disappear underneath the fabric of her tank top. Another sigh left her lips then, vibrating against my shoulder as her back arched into my chest. Even through the thin barrier that was her top, I became dizzy all over again when her breasts flattened against my chest.

Once her tank top had joined mine on the floor beside her bed, things grew frenzied from there. It was like neither of us could move our hands fast enough, kiss enough skin to satisfy our sudden hunger for each other. It wasn't until I reached for the drawstring on her pajama pants that I noticed a flicker of uncertainty in her thoughts.

"Edward..." The tone of Piper's voice was what stopped me. Turning her head away from mine, I moved when she began to push on my shoulders. Falling back onto the bed with my right shoulder resting against the glass wall, I dragged in shaky puffs of air as she sat up and leaned over to grab her shirt. She hadn't been wearing a bra with her pajamas and I could tell from her thoughts that she felt more exposed right then than she was comfortable with.

"I'm sorry." She muttered as she pulled the top over her head then quickly dragged it down to cover the rest of her body. "I can't do this. Not...not now."

"Why?" The word felt hideously lame coming from me. I very much felt like a teenage boy right then, having just been rejected and mentally told to put it on ice. One glance down my body confirmed just how turned on I'd become by Piper and I silently moved to hide the now-embarrassing erection. I could count on one hand the number of times I'd let things progress this far within my own body and it hurt to remember that a good majority of those had been at Bella's hands.

Piper turned slowly as she raked both hands through her hair. "There are just too many reasons to give you right now and I doubt a single one of them is going to make any sense."

I frowned then and moved to sit on the edge of her bed. She held my torn button-down out for me. I took it grudgingly and slung the obsolete shirt back onto my body, having no choice but to let it hang open against my chest and stomach. "Try me. I might surprise you."

She turned slightly and laughed quietly, bitterly before crossing her arms underneath her breasts. Of course, my mind filled with images of the supple skin beneath her top but I shook my head visibly to get rid of them. Remembering what could have happened wasn't going to do me any good right then. She'd stopped me, that had been in her complete power and right to do so. I had to of been sending her all kinds of weird and mixed signals. "The most obvious?" She started and raised an eyebrow at me as I continued to shift at my own uncomfortability. I had to admit, something Emmett had been _oh so kind_ to clue me in on, vampire erections were nowhere near as simple as human erections had been. "I just told you, not twenty minutes ago that I can't compete with Bella. I won't."

"I never said you had to." I blurted out in a sudden heat of anger. I climbed to my feet and advanced on her slightly, not entirely sure what I was about to say or do next. It hurt more than I was willing to admit when she brought that up again. "I never said you _were_."

"Oh please." She laughed again, her head falling back as she stared at the ceiling in her brief pause before she plunged ahead. I had no idea what was coming now. She'd locked her thoughts away from me yet again. This girl wasn't going to give me any type of warning. "Don't stand there and tell me that you haven't compared me to her. I know you have, Edward, I'm not stupid! You've been freezing me out for months, which I expected. Especially after you told me about Bella. And I know there was a lot you were leaving out, I could feel it. But now, all of a sudden, we're being more open with each other and everything's changing. You just barged in here and started kissing me!"

"You didn't push me away, Piper." Why, oh _why_ did I feel the need to remind her of that?!

Thankfully, the expression on her face stayed controlled as she tightened her arms against her chest. "You're right, I didn't. I was a willing participant in everything that just happened. But don't you get it yet?" She suddenly exploded again and closed the distance to grip one side of my destroyed shirt. "When I woke up for the last time, the thing that surprised me most wasn't you sitting there. It wasn't having someone in the room with me. I handled that all just fine. The thing that rocked me and has continued to rock me to my very core is how much I _want you_. It doesn't even matter what's going on. I can just be standing there, thinking of one thing then something comes along and reminds me of you. And it all hits me all over again. I have never, _ever_ wanted someone as badly as I want you but you don't feel the same way about me. Yeah, there's obviously something between us. I'd be stupid not to see that. But I refuse to let you use me just so you can convince yourself you're over her. You're not Edward, and I'm not entirely sure you ever will be."

"Are you over Jason?" I asked so suddenly that she let go of my shirt and took a surprised step back.

"That's not the same thing." Piper hissed, her eyes igniting like two burning pools of blackening fire. Her hands clenched into fists at her sides and I could clearly tell she wanted, more than anything, to deck me right then and there.

"How is it not the same thing?!" I went on, ignoring every single warning bell and voice in my head. I could hear the faint footsteps of the others coming up to see what was going on. Before I could let her answer me, I crossed the room and slammed the door into its frame. Turning just in time, I saw her flinch and look away guiltily. My own anger had consumed me so entirely that I was behind her again in an instant, turning her back around to face me with both of her upper arms locked tightly in my hands. "How is it not the same, Piper? You tell me. How in the hell are my lingering feelings for Bella so different from yours for Jason?"

"Because I stopped loving him when he killed my baby!" Her scream echoed violently off the walls as she pushed with all her might against me. Her newborn strength had only dwindled slightly over the past five months, but it was enough to knock me back against the door. I could only blink in surprise as I slid to the floor, my knees curling up toward my chest involuntarily. "He killed my child." Piper went on, her chest heaving underneath her top and her fists were still clenched at her sides. "My daughter died, in my arms, in a hotel room in Virginia. I was too late in getting her away from him! He'd already inflicted too much damage on her. So don't you sit there." Tears would have been streaming down her eyes right then if her body could still perform the action, and I felt the stone weight of my heart proverbially drop into my stomach. "Don't you sit there and tell me that what I went through is anywhere _near_ the same as what you did." Her voice lost some of it's volume as she turned away from me.

I could feel the door beginning to push against my back. Piper's screaming had made them even more desperate to get into the room to see what was happening. I succeeded in climbing to my feet then was nearly knocked over when Esme ran into the room and enveloped the hysterical girl in a tight hug. Jasper was the second into the room, trying his best to defuse the tension with his gift. It was a futile gesture, there was no way anyone could be calmed right then.

I was at a complete loss as the rest of our family streamed into the room. It looked like an even divide between the women and men of the Cullens. The women were, of course, trying to calm Piper down while the men formed an uneven circle around me.

"What happened?" Carlisle's voice was clear as a bell against the noise of Piper's tearless sobbing and the stereo that had been all but forgotten about. She was haunched over in Esme's arms, her hands over her face as the grief swallowed her whole.

"I...." I could only shrug helplessly when my voice failed to cooperate. How could I _possibly_ explain this to my family? How could I tell them that I had gone from trying to prove I felt something for Piper, only to push her into the darkest of her memories? "I'm sorry." I whispered in a sort of defeat that I'd never, in my long years, felt before. This crushing weight hadn't held half of the defeat I'd felt when I walked away from Bella for the very last time.

"I'm sorry." I spoke again, a little more clearly in hopes of the words somehow reaching Piper before I turned and dashed out of the house. I no longer cared about the shirt hanging off my body, or the lingering uncomfortability in my khakis as I bolted through the close grouping of trees that lined our house. All I could think about right then, the only clear stream of focus I had was centered around escaping the girl I'd just broken. In the end, my name had been added to that fateful list anyway.

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_**AUTHOR'S NOTE: **Yeah, another one. Just to let you guys know, if you want, that the song used in this chapter is the song that actually inspired the story. More Like Her by Miranda Lambert, you can check out the song and video here on YouTube._


	21. Chapter 21

_**AUTHOR'S NOTE: **__Yet another chapter! Things are going to be wrapping up very quickly from here. I still need y'all's imput about doing a sequel from Piper's perspective. But thank you so much already for the reviews I've gotten. I do think there would be a lot more to tell from her eyes than Edward's. Anyway, enough of me rambling. Here's the new chapter and I apologize now for length. I couldn't find a good place to cut it without losing something._

_Stephenie Meyer's the genius, I'm just having fun. Please review!_

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**CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE:**

I lost all sense of time as I ran. With no clear destination in mind, this excursion of sorts would have been pretty freeing. But the ghosts of the past always seem to have a way of following you. No matter what, no matter how hard you run or how many times you forbid yourself to look over your shoulder; they're always there. They're always breathing down your neck with no immediate signs of letting up any time soon.

I couldn't think of a reason to stop, so I didn't. I just kept running, heading southwest in hopes that some distance would snap things back into the sharp focus I had grown accustomed to. In the end, it didn't work and my pace didn't let up until I had reached some obscure town hundreds of miles away from where I had started. I hadn't just left the town, I'd left the entire state - as well as many more behind me.

My eyes remained downcast on my shoes as I snagged a shirt that had been left in a bag of clothes awaiting pickup from the Salvation Army. If I was going to keep up in this aimless mission, I had to look at least somewhat presentable. As I discarded the ruined shirt in favor of a simple white undershirt, I realized that I hadn't taken anything with me when I ran out of the house. I didn't have my wallet, my set of housekeys, or even my cell phone as I continued to wander through the northern part of Ohio. How long had it been since I left Piper sobbing in the arms of my mother?

With this question, and so many others plaguing me, I kept going. There was no real need for me to stop. I'd fed just days before leaving New Hampshire; my eyes were still a bright gold and I couldn't feel physical fatigue or exhaustion anymore. Stopping would serve no purpose. It would just give me the time I didn't want to sit and dwell on the destruction I'd left in my wake. Maybe I'd been right all along in trying to warn Bella, and now Piper. I really was a monster when it came right down to it. That seemed to be the greater purpose I now served; I'd become a walking, supernatural wrecking ball.

Desperate to fling these intruding thoughts away, I once again began to run at top speed. As I trekked further across the continental United States, a new destination sprang to mind. Could I do what I was suddenly desperate for and leave everything untouched? Did I _really_ have it in me to visit Bella one last time and not damage her world as I'd done so to Piper's? I wasn't entirely sure myself, but I showed no signs of stopping until I passed the familiar sign that led me into Forks, Washington. A glance at the digital calendar inside a slow-passing car on the highway returned time to me. In a sense at least. I'd already spent three days away from home without noticing the rising and setting of the sun.

I passed our old home first. It was still boarded up and empty, showing clear signs of abandonment. This was how we had left the house. I wondered if Bella had come here after I'd gone. How had she felt when she saw the dark windows and covered furniture? Did it hurt her more, cause her even more pain than I'd already inflicted on her fragile heart?

I didn't let myself linger on the grounds, not when a greater gravitational pull began to grip hold of me. I hadn't been back here since the night of Bella's wedding to Jacob Black. I'd willingly let my life here go. I'd just cast it all aside in hopes of stopping the damage I was piling onto Bella Swan.

The next step was Charlie's house. In her letters, Bella had said that her father forgave me for hurting his only daughter. But I didn't stop to find out if there was any truth to her words. There were no lights on in the house anyway and the police cruiser wasn't parked in the drive. I didn't pause long enough to let the lash of pain across my heart gain momentum as I remembered all the times I'd parked in that very same driveway. And later, when I had begun to lay the groundwork for my departure, out in front of the house. With a stop at the house of the way, I faded back into the woods and made the short run to the border lining Forks with La Push. It was violating the treaty to cross into their land, but I wasn't here to harm anyone. I just wanted a glimpse. One little eyeful of Bella in her new life and I would move on.

This wasn't a plan that had been carefully constructed. I realized that when I came to a stop just a foot away from the house Bella now shared with Jacob. He was seated out on the concrete porch, staring thoughtfully up at the stars. My footsteps were heavier than normal as I carefully approached, my hands sprayed out in front of me in surrender and peace. I hadn't come to intrude on his life, he needed to know that before anything else was said.

The young werewolf looked up and noticed almost immediately. His thoughts hit me without warning and the first stream I caught was his surprise. He'd never expected me to set foot back in Forks or La Push.

"Edward?" His voice was purposefully low as he strode across the freshly cut lawn to meet me. I could hear Bella's heartbeat inside the house and had to stop when I encountered her scent for the first time in over three years. It was just as powerful and potent as it had been that first day in Biology. "What're you doing here?"

"I don't know." I sighed, dropping my voice to barely above a whisper. With the supernatural gift also in his genetic makeup, he was able to hear me just fine. I didn't want Bella to know I was here. Seeing me could only undo everything she'd worked so hard to accomplished. I was just passing through, after all. I didn't want to leave a mess for Jacob to clean up. He'd already put Bella back together once, I doubted he would be so forgiving a second time. "I just...started running and ended up here."

"But...why?" His thoughts became jumbled then as we stepped into a line of trees just to the left of his front porch. A shadow passed through one of the small windows then and I noticed Bella's form clearly. No time away would ever keep me from being able to notice her. "Did something happen where you are now?"

I nodded in spite of myself. I'd had no intentions of telling Jacob about the young woman I'd unconsciously hurt in a moment of reckless anger. "You might say that, yeah. I'm sorry but we broke the treaty."

Jacob frowned then when I reminded him of the ancient pact made between Carlisle and his great-grandfather, Ephram Black. We'd promised to never harm another human being and I didn't need fine print to know it extended beyond the boundaries set up in Forks. "How?"

I stepped further back into the trees, suddenly fearful that Bella would step outside and somehow notice me talking to her husband. Jacob followed and I strangely didn't wince when the moonlight illuminated the plain gold band circling the third finger on his left hand. His wedding ring. "A girl was left to die outside the hospital Carlisle works at now. I know you probably don't care, but there was no hope for her. Carlisle changed her and she was brought into our family." I answered, giving him as short of an explanation as I could. "She's done surprisingly well, considering what her human life had been like."

"I won't let it go beyond us." Jacob Black promised and I nodded my intense gratitude at his sacrifice. I doubted he would be able to maintain it since his mind was an open book to his brothers when they were all in wolf form. I'd done my research after learning that Bella had turned to him for comfort. "Well, I mean...." He sighed and waved his hand slightly, impatiently. "I'll make Sam okay with it. I owe you anyway."

"No you don't." I responded bitterly. I hadn't meant for the emotion to leak through into my voice, but I didn't see how he could possibly _owe_ me anything. We weren't keeping score as far as I was concerned.

"Yeah, Edward, I do." He pushed on, shuffling his feet against the grass beneath our feet. "You could've come back and taken Bella away from me a million different times over the past three years. But you didn't. You stuck to your word and stayed away so she could have the kind of future you wanted for her."

I nodded and swallowed thickly, doing my best to dislodge the lump forming in my throat. "Do you think...and I know this is asking a lot from you, Jacob. But is it possible for me to talk to her for a moment? I'm truly not here to ruin your relationship with her. I just...." I just, what? I had no idea why I was making this strange request of Bella's husband. He had every right to tell me no, to remind me that I was once again infringing upon the pact and tell me to take a hike. I had no idea how I would have reacted in his shoes, but Jacob Black truly was a perfect fit for my Bella.

"Sure, if she wants to see you. I can't force her to do anything she doesn't want to. I won't." He added firmly then turned and began to walk back toward the house. I followed him silently, having absolutely no idea what I was about to say. Would I end up breaking the promises I'd just made? Not only to myself, but to Jacob and Bella? I had always been called strong by my family, but this was a real test of that strength. As I grew closer to the house Bella now called home, I willed myself to hold true to what I'd just said. I would not leave Jacob to pick up the pieces I'd blown apart yet again. I refused to. Neither one of them deserved that.

Bella came out of the house right then and I was momentarily knocked breathless by the sight of her. She still looked very much like the girl I'd left in the woods, but womanhood had taken it's hold on her. Her hair reached her waist in soft waves, some of the roundness gone from her face. The biggest change, I noticed, was the roundness in her abdomen. She'd always been a tiny girl, but this was the first time I'd ever seen her with any new kind of weight added to her 5'4" frame.

"Is everything - oh!" A soft exclamation blended in with her musical voice when her chocolate brown eyes set on me for the first time since she was eighteen. Shock crossed her features first before settling into an expression I'd never seen on her face before. She looked almost..._happy_ to see me standing here, next to her husband. "Edward!" A bright grin split her features as she vaulted off the porch. Of course, her movements were clumsy and she tripped as she came off the final stair.

I forced myself to remain still as Jacob reached out and easily caught her before she could complete her fall. "Bells, what did I tell you about being careful on that last step?" He gently chastized her, but even that was filled with love and adoration.

Bella straightened up and a light blush flooded through her cheeks. Nothing had changed with this beautiful girl, now married woman. She was still just as breathtaking as the day she'd been when she first came into my world. "Sorry!" She flushed even more with embarassment, holding onto Jacob's arm tightly as she regained her footing. "I was just so surprised to see Edward standing with you."

I managed a small smile when her eyes locked on me again, but it soon became mangled when her tiny hand slid over the new curve of her stomach. Jacob's thoughts answered my question before I could even ask it. She was about four months pregnant with their first child. My Bella was on her way to becoming a mom.

Instantly, I knew that my coming here had been a monumental mistake. I had never thought this was what I would find when I sought her out for the last time. But yet I stayed rooted in place, the smile growing a little more geniune when she stepped out of Jacob's embrace to come hug me.

I was exceptionally careful as I curled my arms around her waist, her arms winding around my neck in a light band of feathers. "I'm so happy you're here." She breathed into the crook of my neck. I felt the smile transform her lips against my cold skin. She stepped back and shivered a little, smiling bashfully as she moved. "Sorry, I forgot how cold you are."

"You're used to Jacob's temperature." I supplied calmly and inclined my head slightly. "I understand. Look at you!" I exclaimed suddenly and gestured at her belly with both hands. "I hear congratulations are in order."

Jacob must have realized that I'd picked that from his thoughts and flashed me a sheepish, apologetic smile. But Bella didn't look the least bit preturbed. I was more than grateful for that. "Thanks." She responded with a small smile of wonder on her face.

"I'll leave you two to talk." Jacob announced suddenly and kissed Bella's temple before turning to go back into the house. "I'll be inside if you need me."

"Okay." She nodded and smiled at his back before focusing on me again. "How are you? It's so strange that you're here again."

"I didn't mean to...intrude." I finished lamely. Now that I was standing here in front of her, I had no idea what to say. Things had changed so drastically since the last time I'd seen her. Her letters had been true, she really had gotten over me and the heartache I left her to deal with.

"You aren't." She waved the statement off the motioned at the concrete slab constituting a porch. "Come sit? How is everyone? Are you all still together?"

I smiled at her long stream of questions and sat a tiny distance from her on the slender porch. Her hands looked to have a mind of their own as she clasped them beneath her growing belly. "Yes, we're all together now. Carlisle is working at the hospital in Hanover, New Hampshire. We live just outside the town in a house that Esme restored. Emmett and Rosalie are attending Dartmouth, again. Jasper and Alice are in high school with me."

"That's really good to hear." Her sincerity was unwavering as she smiled at me. "I've been really worried about you since you guys left Forks."

"Bella," I sighed then stopped. I hadn't expected her to bring that up so soon, even if it was just in passing. "I want to apologize for how I left you that night. I know it'll probably solve nothing by dragging it back up, but still...I want to apologize. I feel like I _need_ to in some way."

She sighed and the soft curtain of her hair shielded her face when she bent her head toward the ground. Just when I began to fear that I'd failed, yet again, she looked back up at me. Her eyes were shiny in the moonlight now and I could see the tears desperately trying to escape her lower lids. "It took me a long time to get over that. To accept that you were gone and not coming back. But I did."

"Are you happy, Bella?" I asked suddenly, unable to keep the question from my lips any longer.

"Yes." She answered with no hesitation at all. "Like I said, it took me a long time. But Jake never gave up on me. He actually made your leaving easier for me to handle. I won't lie and say it was all sunshine and roses. Things got really dark for me after you left. I never thought you'd fall out of love with me so quickly, but in a way, I kind of expected it. I wondered the entire time we were together, when you would see what I did and leave."

"Bella, it wasn't like that."

"I know." She nodded and reached out to gently pat my arm. "I know that now. I understand now why you left. And I can look back on that part of my life and not feel as sad and heartbroken as I used to. I believe that you really did love me there for a while, but you were right. Edward, without you changing me, there was no way I could have continued to survive in your world. I haven't completely escaped the world you opened up to me, but it doesn't feel so overwhelming now."

"I'm glad." And I was. Truly. "And I am sorry for lying to you that night. I thought, at the time, it was the only way I could get you to let me go. I probably handled it in the worst of ways, but you deserved so much more than I could have given you. I didn't want to end your life and leave you forever unable to move on. Yes, I wanted you with me. I left that night still very much in love with you, but your wellbeing has always been more important to me than anything else."

"And I thank you for that." Right then, I fully believed that she had forgiven me for leaving her so broken. "I completely understand it all now, now that some time has passed and I'm with Jacob. But judging by the look on your face, you haven't forgiven yourself for what you did. You're still torturing yourself, aren't you?" When I nodded, she sighed and looked out at the yard. "I thought so." Her frown became even more pronounced as she bodily turned to face me this time. "Now it's your turn to let me go. Edward, I'm happy. I never thought I would want this kind of life, but it's what I want. I'm taking some classes at the local community college and we're getting ready for the baby. I love Jacob, I moved on just like you'd hoped I would. But now it's your turn. You _have_ to move on too or else all the pain will have been for nothing. I hate the thought of you attacking yourself and destroying possible chances at happiness. All because of me and the choice you made to keep me human. I've forgiven you for it all, but now you have to forgive yourself."

Wise beyond her years. That had always been Bella Swan, now Black. I nodded and tried to swallow back the new invisible lump that had formed in my throat.

"Tell me more about your life!" She announced so suddenly that I could only look up at her in surprise. "What have you been doing with yourself over the last three years?"

I cracked a smile in spite of myself and sighed unnessessarily. "Well, the biggest thing is we have a new family member."

"Really?" The shock flew so quickly across her face that I would have missed it if I wasn't looking directly at her. "What're they like? Do you get along? How long have they been with you guys?"

My smile grew a little more geninue as I launched into the story. "Her name is Piper and she's a Cullen in every way, almost. She was a dying patient of Carlisle's and you know how he is." I didn't need to explain my father to Bella. She knew of his compassion all too well.

"Why did he decide to change her?" She asked then wrinkled her nose delicately. "That's probably none of my business. You don't have to answer."

"No," I shook my head slowly and smiled at her, "it's okay for you to ask. A lot may have changed with us, but that hasn't. She was left beaten and unconsicous outside the hospital. No one even knew her name when she was first admitted, and no one came looking for her. After about two or so weeks, Carlisle convinced Esme to let him bring her home. She's been with us every since."

"And now you're in love with her."

"What?" I sputtered, my face frozen in the shock I felt down to the soles of my shoes.

Bella's laughter was still as hypnotic as it had ever been and I really missed hearing it. "Edward, you forget how well I know...well _knew_ you. I can just tell. You're in love with her but you're not letting yourself admit it. Why? Is she really that hideous or something?" She asked then paused dramatically and wrinkled her nose again. "Is she blonde? Tell me honestly."

I laughed again and shook my head. "You're still as utterly absurd as you always were." I joked, winking at her before I sombered up. "No, she's a very lovely girl. Well, vampire. She's had no real troubles with our life and has two gifts of her own. She can tell when people are lying to her, that's the most prominant. But she's kind of like you in a way, she can keep me out of her mind if she chooses to."

"Wow." Her lips popped slightly as she sounded the word out slowly. "She must really keep you on your toes then, huh?"

I laughed and nodded again then sighed and looked up toward the night sky. "She's had a lot of hardships though. In a lot of ways, she reminds me of you. But she's so unlike you too that I can't help but notice the differences."

"Edward." For the first time since I'd shown up on her front porch, she sounded mad at me. "You can't do that. Of course we're completely different. You can't compare us because we've led completely different lives. Judging by what you're saying, this girl has seen more than her fair share of unhappiness. It's not fair to her for you to compare us. Not if you love her as much as I think you do."

"Why do you think I love her?" I wondered aloud, knowing full well that she was going to answer me anyway.

Another beautiful smile lit up her face again as she shook her head at me. "Because, talking about her? You've got the same expression on your face that you used to have whenever you would look at me. I'm not mad, I swear. I've hoped you would find someone to love. And I really think you've found that with this girl."

"I don't think there's anything possible for us anymore." I admitted and let my shoulders drop in silent defeat. "Not after what I've done."

"What...what did you do?" Bella asked quietly and when I looked at her, she had the strangest mask of confusion on her features.

"I used her to see if I really was over you. It didn't work, not when we both regained our senses enough to think clearly. But...when she woke up as one of us, she had no idea who she was. She couldn't remember anything of her past, but it slowly began to come back to her the longer she stayed with us. It's been five months now and I'm pretty sure she remembers as much of her past as she's going to. She was a teenage bride, marrying the father of her child because she had no choice. Her father had been abusive and the boy she married picked up right where her father had left off. When she tried to leave him, not only did she lose her child, but she almost lost her life. He's searching for her now, but I doubt he'll be able to find her. There's no paper trail leading to her whereabouts. That trail died when she was beaten and left for dead outside the hospital."

"Oh." The quiet surprise expelling from Bella made me immediately regretful. Here she was, pregnant and emotional, and I was telling her the sordid past of a girl that had been victimized one too many times. "Edward, I'm so sorry. Did you...I mean, I hope you didn't, but did you...have you ever used that against her?"

"Not until the very last conversation we've had. I can't accurately describe what happened and I would never expect you to listen to me talk about some other woman. But I hurt her very badly after swearing up and down that I never would. It hurt so much to see the damage I inflicted on her that I just started running."

"Wait!" Bella held her hands up quickly in front of her, squinting in disbelief over the tops of her fingers. "Don't tell me that you _ran_ all the way here, from New Hampshire."

"Yeah." I admitted sheepishly, feeling very much like a scolded child before my first love. "I wasn't thinking clearly when I left the house. I just...it was too much, I had to get away. I didn't want this girl to get under my skin, but she did and then I had no idea of how to handle it. I was clinging to the memory of you and what we had so tightly that I didn't know how to let go. How did you let go of it all? What made you so strong that you forgave me for the worst choice of my very long life?"

As soon as Bella bit down on her lower lip, I was bombared with past images of her doing that. In the cafeteria at school, in the Volvo, my old house, her bedroom.... Her soft voice pulled me out before I could get completely lost in the past. "By taking it one day at a time. I didn't keep myself closed off. Jake made it very difficult for me to do that and he eventually pulled me out of the shell I'd created around myself. You just...you need to let her do that for you. I think you need to do that for each other. You never know Edward, you could very well be the ones to put each other back together."


	22. Chapter 22

_**AUTHOR'S NOTE: **__The final chapter! I can't believe another story I've written is now coming to a close. Before I started writing in the Twilight world, I started a ton of stories that always ended up finished. But I can safely say I haven't had this problem while embarking on ideas centering around the Cullens and their world. Thanks so much to all of the reviews and time spent reading what I've written. It means so much more to me than I could ever say. The sequel is currently in the works, there's no way I'm ready to step away from this story just yet. Y'all keep me writing, it's as simple as that. And I thank you from the very bottom of my heart._

_Stephenie Meyer's the genius, I'm just playing in her sandbox._

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**CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO:**

As much as I would have liked to, I didn't stay very long with Bella and Jacob in La Push. It felt like a weird sort of intrusion, but I did get to see their love for each other first hand. Maybe this was what I'd needed all along. Maybe I had needed to see Bella happy and in love with her husband before I could take the final step toward moving on. I'd even unintentionally had a hand in their relationship growing beyond the boundaries of friendship.

When I made the decision to leave Forks, I'd just assumed that Bella would be okay without me. I thought the danger would leave with me, but that was yet another way I'd been wrong. The danger had stayed and very nearly took Bella's life. Again. Victoria had come back. Victoria, who had lost her mate when he targeted Bella in a deadly game of cat and mouse. She'd thought it only fair to trade a life for a life. Since I'd taken James' life, she had tried her damndest to take Bella's.

But, and I was grateful to find out after the fact, Jacob and his pack had stepped in and been able to take down the solitary vampire. She, along with her previous traveling companion, Laurent who hadn't wanted to be involved at all once James started tracking Bella, were never going to be able to hurt anyone else again. It felt a little strange to listen as Bella recounted all of this to me. How first Laurent had been taken down by sheer coincidence, then Victoria when her plans had folded due to her partner's disappearance. It was sheer sloppiness, I gathered from the stories I'd patiently listened to. Pure sloppiness and an ancient pack of shapeshifters had collided together to take out the last great danger facing Bella.

After calling Carlisle from the Black's new home to let him know where I'd ended up, a plane ticket was set up for my return and I boarded the plane feeling much ligher than when I'd left. Somehow...more free from the past I'd been tormenting myself with for so long. Piper had been right. I couldn't undo anything I'd done and as I hugged Bella for the final time, with her growing belly pressing against my frozen stomach, I realized that I didn't really want to. I'd let her go, free and clear. Her life was now her own and I no longer had any right or place in it. Bella had also been right. I needed to start living my own life again. Eternity was just way too long to keep punishing myself for the damage I'd thought had been unrepairable. All across the board, I had been concretely and absolutely wrong.

The plane coasted smoothly in it's flight from Seattle to Hanover. I didn't have anything to keep me occupied, so I just sat on the plane and thought. What would I be arriving home to? How many members of my family would be mad at me for leaving Piper broken and sobbing for the life she'd fought so hard to protect, but lost anyway? Would she hate me so fiercely that the ground we'd gained in our strange courtship was forever lost?

When the plane touched down and I emerged from the terminal, I mentally prepared myself for all the answers I was about to recieve. Of course, the first ones I noticed were Carlisle and Esme. My mother was clinging to my father as she searched desperately through the crowd for me. Carlisle was doing the same, only he looked stronger than his soulmate. When their eyes finally locked on me, a tearless sob wracked Esme's throat as she flung her arms around my neck.

"Don't you ever, _ever_ disappear like that again! We were worried sick, Edward. Why did you go back to La Push?"

I gently disentangled myself from Esme, only to be pulled into yet another hug by Alice. "I ended up going to try and find some closure."

"Did you?" Alice voiced that question, her tinkling tenor weighed down with sadness and understanding. She'd seen me ending up in Forks, reuniting in a strange way with Bella.

"I did." I nodded and braved a smile for my tiny sister. "Bella sends her love. She misses you all very much." I revealed with a short nod and stepped back to recieve the rest of my family. The only ones who seemed to be missing were Emmett, Rosalie and...Piper.

I flinched when agony seared, white-hot through me and mentally tried to shake if off as my family began to lead me through the crowded airport then out to Carlisle's waiting car. No one said anything as we piled in, me sitting behind the driver's seat with Alice in between Jasper and myself. Maybe the others hadn't come because of room. But that was a foolish thought. They would have taken two cars if the others had wanted to come to welcome me home.

With a soft sigh, I leaned my head against the window beside me and closed my eyes as I tried desperately to shield myself from my family's thoughts of worry and concern. They knew what I would be in for, I had absolutely no idea. And for the first time in a while, I didn't really want to. I'd made this mess, I didn't deserve a head's up.

The house had an erie silence when the Mercedes slid to a smooth stop out front. I was the first out, not even really paying attention as the rest of my family emerged from the car and followed me into the house. There was something seriously wrong, something major that I'd missed on my impromptu trip to La Push. For one, I could only hear the thoughts of Emmett and Rosalie. Of course, my blonde sister was beyond angry with me and her thoughts were giving insight to just how deeply her new-found hatred for me ran. But there was no mental trace of Piper anywhere.

Not thinking twice, I darted up the stairs toward her room. There was no way.... She _had_ to only have her thoughts closed off from me. Maybe someone had let it slip that I was coming back tonight. She'd had a week without me around, maybe she needed a little longer? Any other time things had become dicey between us, she just closed herself up in her room and tried to mentally work things out herself.

One look in her room brought everything crashing in around me. Even though her room had barely ever looked lived it, that was nothing compared to what I encountered as I slowly stepped into the room. There was no traces of Piper anywhere. Her scent still hung faintly in the air, but it was too weak for me to accurately guess the last time she'd walked into the room. Whatever flowed through my veins now felt like it had been replaced with ice. Ice that was threatening to splinter my veins apart and slice me from the inside out.

The sheets on her normally-immaculate bed were still rumpled from our first and only brush with physical contact. Wait, who was I kidding? The sheets were still tousled from where I'd laid her down so that I could prove to both of us that I was over Bella.

"She's gone." Carlisle's voice behind me just made my skin feel even colder as I continued to stare at the bed helplessly. Piper was gone. Had she finally decided to strike out on her own? Was I the reason she no longer wanted a place among my family? I hated to carry such conceited thoughts, but it all tied together way too well. I was the only one she'd really had a problem with since waking up in the house. I was the greatest opposition against her settling in and finding her niche among a family of vampires. And now....

Now she was gone. All traces of her presence taken with her. Whirling around quickly, I had to keep myself from grabbing the front of my father's shirt. "When? Did she say why she was leaving?"

The grief on Carlisle's face could only be described as ancient and I winced at how old he suddenly looked standing before me. It was almost as if he knew that what he was about to say had the ability to hurt me. I didn't dare peek into his mind, I didn't want to hear him think the words that he desperately wished he didn't have to say aloud. But yet, I _needed_ him to say it aloud. "She left just hours after you did, Edward. She said she couldn't stay here with her past as unresolved as it was."

Of course, that wasn't the real reason. That was in the forefront of Carlisle's thoughts and when I realized that he wasn't going to honestly answer my question, I braced myself mentally and dove in.

She had left because she couldn't stand to face me again. Not after what had happened and the words we'd exchanged.

The grief was so overpowering that my legs folded. I fell to my knees with a soft thud, having been cushioned a little by the carpeting of her bedroom. Piper had really left. She'd packed her stuff and moved on. Financial help had been given by Esme, who couldn't bare to let the girl leave the house without some money to her name. But it still hurt, stung deeper than anything else I'd felt in the past three years.

"Did she say whether or not she's coming back?" My voice cracked in the exact places I didn't want it to. There had been very few people in my absurdly long existance that had the ability to make me feel like that vulnerable, seventeen-year-old boy I'd been before the Influenza hit and Carlisle saved me. But as I sat there, feeling very much defeated and hopeless, I realized that Piper had gained that power. All without either one of us realizing it. I'd had no idea what exactly she meant to me, how she made me feel and how very dependent I'd come to be on having her in the house and in the family...until she was gone.

Why had it taken me so long? Why did I always realize that the thing, or in this case person, I wanted most was always staring me right in the face? How could a person overlook that? How could they overlook the person that gave them a reason to keep going, even if that reason was still unclear to them? There had to be some sort of reasoning behind all of this. Carlisle hadn't changed Piper, saved her from an untimely and brutal death, just to have her strike out on her own. He'd wanted her to be as much a part of his family as the rest of us were. Sure, we had the choice to leave whenever we so desired. But up until this moment, up until Piper chose to leave us behind; I'd been the only one to act on that choice.

But I'd eventually found my way back. The connections to the beginning of my family were just too strong for me to ignore. All pity and anger at the thing I'd become aside, being around Carlisle, Rosalie, Emmett, Esme, and eventually Alice and Jasper had lessened that burden I'd unknowingly carried. Just like now, when I'd left the safety of Carlisle's family, I hadn't realized the good thing I'd had. I'd faired a lot better than some other vampires walking our world. I hadn't been left behind, just changed and discarded by someone who had no idea what they were doing or creating. I'd been carefully watched so that I wouldn't become the fullest potential of the monster I could be. My family had kept me reigned in, helped me hold on to what little humanity left inside my body.

Would the same happen for Piper? Would she realize that the family she had left behind, the family that had welcomed her in without so much as the bat of an eyelash, was hurting by her absence?

Would I get yet another chance to make things right? Was it written in the stars or whatever we were supposed to believe in, that I would get to one day stand face to face with Piper again and explain all of the revelations I'd come to?

The answer to those questions, and so many more that craved a happy and hopeful answer, didn't look very promising. It was very possible that my luck had run out. Luck I didn't even deserve because of all the things I'd taken for granted. Maybe this had been my final shot. Maybe I wasn't going to be smiled on for a third time.

Sometimes the damage was just too extensive for it all to be cleared away.

The entire scene around me seemed to fade away as I slowly climbed to my feet and left her bedroom. I couldn't stand to be within these four walls anymore, not without the cluttered neatness that was acutely Piper Cullen surrounding me. The trek back to my bedroom was a slow one and I felt like my body had gone on autopilot as I changed my clothes and fell onto my couch. I didn't even raise a hand to turn on my stereo. Music would bring no solace to me in the unreachable darkness I'd just been plunged head-first into. But as I lay there, letting my mind take in every single thing that had happened over the past three and half months, there was one song that reached me. Just a few simple bars, sung in the melody of a heartbroken feminine voice.

_You had it all for a pretty little while. And somehow you made me smile when I was sad. You took a chance on a bruised and beaten heart, then you realized you wanted what you had. I guess I should've been more like that...._

**To Be Continued....**


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